Nugent-Hopkins gives the sweetest answer about Edmonton Oilers fans after big win
The Edmonton Oilers are one win away from playing in the Stanley Cup Final, and fans are loving it.
This was far more stressful than the 6-1 victory Edmonton ran away with in Game 3. The Dallas Stars hung around all night long and forced the Oilers to cling to a tight 2-1 lead into the dying minutes of regulation. It was a pair of empty-net goals that gave Edmonton the cushion to relax in the final minute, as the team skated away with a 4-1 victory.
Leon Draisaitl opened the scoring, while Corey Perry netted the game-winner on the power play in the second period.
Once again, Rogers Place was an absolute zoo as fans cheered on the Oilers into the final minute. The decibel metre nearly broke 110 as the seconds ticked down and a deafening “We Want The Cup” chant broke out in the moments before the final buzzer.
Once again, the Rogers Place crowd was otherworldly tonight
Absolutely deafening “We Want The Cup” chants in the final minute #Oilers pic.twitter.com/KUjiG9NiW0
— Preston Hodgkinson (@NHLHodgkinson) May 28, 2025
It was a sight to behold, and an atmosphere that wasn’t lost on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who has been a member of the Oilers for over a decade.
“It just keeps getting better and better,” Nugent-Hopkins said of the fans. “It’s unbelievable, it’s hard to wrap your head around sometimes how unbelievable this fanbase is.
“It seems like every series, every game, they get louder in there… You feel the support.”
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins & Leon Draisaitl address the media after they both recorded multi-point games in Tuesday's 4-1 #Oilers win over the Stars in Game 4.@Enterprise | #LetsGoOilers pic.twitter.com/hUGjHoxTLX
— Edmonton Oilers (@EdmontonOilers) May 28, 2025
It’s been a long road to get to this point for Nugent-Hopkins. He spent the first six years of his NHL career on some pretty brutal Oilers teams. Drafted in 2011, his first taste of the Stanley Cup Playoffs came in 2017. Last year’s playoff run was his first time in the Stanley Cup Final, and now he may get there for a second straight season.
Despite the bad times at the start of his Oilers tenure, Nugent-Hopkins said the fans made it all worth it.
“When I first came in, we were a struggling team, but you never really felt the negativity too much in the city,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “There was still a lot of positivity and a lot of hope.
“We’re one win away from going to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals, this is as exciting as it gets for us as a team and also for the fanbase that’s stuck around through a lot of years… It never gets old, it just keeps getting better.”
The moment has not been too big for Nuge, who has been on an absolute tear in this Western Conference Final, with eight points in four games. He’s the first Oilers player to do that in 37 years, with the last being Wayne Gretzky.
Nugent-Hopkins was right when he said that the fanbase deserves this, but nobody on this Oilers team deserves to win more than him.