As the Stanley Cup Finals begin tonight, we’re going to issue an edict for Edmonton today on Wednesday Wizengamot: it’s time for a Canadian team to win the NHL championship for the first time since 1993. It’s been a long time coming, and this year’s Oilers have had a year to think about their inability to win Game 7 on the road last year in Florida. This June, it’s Edmonton with the home-ice advantage, and that’s the key.

We admit it: we don’t like Florida Man at all. And we are pro-Canada in many ways, too. We’ve been to the True North Strong and Free many times in our lives; we even spent our honeymoon there way back when. Our first NHL sweater? A Maple Leafs beauty we bought it in Toronto 29 years ago—and it still fits. We’d be thrilled if Canada annexed the Best Coast states of California, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.

Most people do not realize that hockey actually is not the national sport of Canada; it’s lacrosse. But we all know how hockey-proud the Canadians are, and we respect that passion. Americans act that way about baseball, basketball, and football, of course—and just about everything else sports related to the point that when we started losing, we had to change the rules so we could win again. Yeah, the U.S. is that thin-skinned.

The Florida Panthers are the defending champions, of course, and they hold slim sabermetric advantages over the Oilers in the key categories: overall rating, goal differential, regulation wins, and strength of schedule. The Panthers were the fifth-best sabermetric team in the Eastern Conference, while the Oilers were the sixth-best sabermetric team in the Western Conference. But experience and motivation matters.

And in this matchup, we see the home-ice edge and the residue of losing as the bigger factors here, since both teams have shown that perhaps the sabermetrics can be thrown out this time around the rink. Edmonton also has the top three skaters on the ice, although Florida has better depth, generally speaking. The Panthers have the edge in net, too, a third straight trip to the Finals might slow down an aging star.

If we write any more, we’ll be repeating ourselves: this is an all-heart pick. Edmonton in seven games.