Last summer, when the NHL finally put an end to its year-long work stoppage, the resulting collective bargaining agreement ostensibly made it possible for every team – no matter its market size – to compete for the Stanley Cup. If the results of this year’s playoffs are any indication, the new CBA has worked wonders, and perhaps no more so than in Edmonton, where the Oilers have advanced to the Western Conference finals for the first time in 14 years.

The Edmonton Oilers of the late 1980s were one of the finest sports teams ever assembled. Featuring future Hall of Famers Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Paul Coffey, Jari Kurri, and Grant Fuhr, the Oilers played a tremendously exciting brand of hockey, winning five Stanley Cups between 1984 and 1990.

But toward the end of that successful run, Edmonton’s talented core was smashed to smithereens, beginning with the infamous trade that sent Gretzky to the Los Angeles Kings in the summer of 1988. Though the dismantled Oilers made a surprising appearance in the Western Conference Finals in 1992, they were a non-factor for most of the 15 years following their last Cup win.

During the lockout, the Oilers were unsurprisingly held up as a team in desperate need of a new labor deal – one that would enable them to compete for top talent in the free-agent market. Before the ink had even dried on the agreement, Oilers GM Kevin Lowe set about the task of revamping his team. He pulled off a huge deal with St. Louis, sending three young defensemen to the Blues in exchange for perennial Norris Trophy candidate Chris Pronger.

The hulking blueliner struggled for the first two months of the season, but he gradually adapted to the league’s rule changes and re-emerged as one of the NHL’s top defensemen. During the Oilers’ playoff run, Pronger has been a stalwart on the blue line, consistently playing upwards of 30 minutes per game while shutting down some of the NHL’s most dangerous forwards.

The Pronger trade was essentially the first time since Messier’s exit that the Oilers had aggressively pursued another team’s high-priced star, and it was a harbinger of things to come for Edmonton’s long-suffering fans. Former Islanders captain Michael Peca was also added in an off-season trade, and Lowe made subsequent mid-season deals to bolster the offense (Sergei Samsonov), defense (Jaroslav Spacek and Dick Tarnstrom), and goaltending (Dwayne Roloson).

Acquiring Pronger put the Oilers back on the map, but it was the Roloson trade that transformed them into a bona fide title contender. Through the first 63 games of the season, Oilers goaltenders combined for an atrocious .881 save percentage, far below the league average of .898. That Edmonton was able to remain in the playoff hunt despite such poor goaltending prior to Roloson’s arrival is a testament to the impact Pronger had on the defense, and to the expert coaching of Craig MacTavish.

An additional challenge the Oilers faced this season was their strength of schedule, and it’s turned out to have been a huge help in their playoff run. Because they play in the extremely tough Northwest Division, the final three months of the Oilers’ regular season schedule were playoff-like in their intensity. In sharp contrast, the President’s Trophy-winning Detroit Red Wings coasted into the playoffs thanks to the lack of quality in their Central division. The Oilers’ “shocking” first round upset of the heavily-favored Wings really shouldn’t have come as a huge surprise at all.

All of these factors combined to make the Oilers a great sleeper pick to go deep in the playoffs, and this is precisely why the New York Sun has picked them to win each series they’ve played in thus far. Currently up 2-0 against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, the Oilers are well on their way to their first Cup Finals appearance since 1990. Game 3 will be played tonight in the raucous Rexall Place, and the Oilers should benefit accordingly from the home-ice advantage.

Not surprisingly, this series has been played in an extremely tactical fashion; the Ducks and Oilers have been the two stingiest teams in this year’s playoffs. Given that, look for MacTavish to take advantage of the opportunity to make the final line change. Not only will he be able to choose which forwards to match Pronger against, he’ll also be able to get the match-ups he wants in the faceoff circle.

A former faceoff expert himself – he won the final draw in the Rangers’ 1994 Stanley Cup victory – MacTavish has taught young Jarret Stoll well. Of centers who took 1,000 or more faceoffs during the regular season, Stoll’s success rate of 56.8% ranked fourth in the NHL, and he has won a similarly excellent 56.4% of his postseason duels.

With an extremely deep offense featuring four dangerous scoring lines, a defense highlighted by the presence of perhaps the NHL’s most dominant blueliner, and a red-hot goaltender stopping virtually everything opponents throw at him, the Oilers have every essential ingredient needed to win the Cup. And after nearly 15 years of ineptitude, it’s great to see one of the NHL’s most storied franchises enjoy a return to excellence.

For the NHL,it might be considered a short-term negative that small-market teams are reigning supreme in this year’s playoffs. After all, it’s a safe bet that sports fans in New York – to name just one market – are looking elsewhere for their entertainment. But in the long term, the league is correctly following a path – at least to some degree – that has worked to perfection in the NFL. If every team goes into every season believing that it has a chance to win, interest in the league will inevitably rise. After the downturn that was the past decade, that’s positive news that shouldn’t be overlooked.

Mr. Greenstein is the editor in chief of InsideHockey.com.