The primary 25 years of the Florida Panthers’ existence was something however synonymous with hockey success. The Panthers made the NHL postseason solely 5 occasions and superior previous the second spherical simply as soon as, all whereas biking via 10 coaches.
Now, they’re hockey’s most dominant franchise — once more.
On Tuesday, Florida gained its second consecutive Stanley Cup title by outlasting Edmonton in a repeat of final 12 months’s remaining, successful 5-1 in Recreation 6 to proceed its practically in a single day transformation into one among hockey’s most profitable franchises. It was the third straight season Florida had performed for a title, a run that coincides with the hiring of coach Paul Maurice.
Edmonton gained the collection opener in extra time, just for Florida to rebound with wins in Recreation 2, in double extra time, and Recreation 3. When Edmonton evened the collection with an extra time win in Recreation 4, Florida took a 3-2 collection lead by successful Recreation 5.
The Panthers then closed out a collection stuffed with tight video games with a blowout that started with Sam Reinhart’s unassisted objective within the first interval. A objective by Matthew Tkachuk pushed the result in 2-0, and Reinhart scored the following three objectives to show the closeout alternative right into a 5-0 rout. Reinhart’s 4 objectives tied Maurice Richard’s in 1957 for a Stanley Cup Remaining report. It was the second straight 12 months Reinhart performed hero for Florida, after he scored the game-winning objective in final season’s Recreation 7 victory.
Florida’s Carter Verhaeghe completed with three assists. Panthers teammate Sam Bennett earned the Conn Smythe Trophy because the playoffs’ most useful participant, having scored a league-leading 15 postseason objectives.
“It is unimaginable,” Florida’s Brad Marchand, who gained the second Stanley Cup of his profession, informed TNT moments after the win. “It is a feeling you may’t actually describe.
“Such an unimaginable group. Everyone wrote us off from the beginning of the playoffs. That they had everyone beating us in each spherical, and we simply had that fireplace, and we knew we had one thing particular.”
Edmonton scored its solely objective within the remaining minutes, properly after the Panthers had already put the sport away by scoring thrice on Edmonton goaltender Stuart Skinner, along with two extra empty-net objectives.
With its 4-2 collection win, Florida is the tenth franchise to win consecutive championships and the primary since Tampa Bay in 2020-21. The championship prolonged the Panthers’ run, continued the league’s southern shift and continued Canada’s championship drought to 32 years, with Montreal the final Canadian champion, in 1993. Eight groups from Canada have made the Stanley Cup Remaining since, solely to come back up brief.
Since 2004, when Tampa Bay gained the Stanley Cup, 10 of the previous 21 champions have come from the Solar Belt, extending from Los Angeles to Florida. The 4 Stanley Cup titles gained by the state of Florida alone within the final 5 years is as many as Canada has produced within the final 37.
To win its second Stanley Cup, Florida needed to overcome a uneven common season through which it completed with solely the Jap Convention’s fifth-highest level complete and fifth-best objective differential. A repeat assembly of final 12 months’s finalists was hardly a foregone conclusion, as Edmonton endured its personal inconsistency whereas ending with the sixth-most factors within the Western Convention.
As soon as they reached the postseason, each Florida and Edmonton pushed via behind offenses that ranked first and third in goal-scoring. Florida additionally owned the perfect goals-against common within the postseason, at simply 2.5.
Within the postseason, the Panthers then needed to overcome their weak spot of squandering potential series-clinching alternatives. They had been simply 10-8 in such eventualities since 2023. And shutting out the collection additionally meant stopping maybe hockey’s greatest offensive weapon in Connor McDavid, the 28-year-old star whose lengthy listing of particular person accolades in 10 years in Edmonton hadn’t but translated right into a crew championship.
McDavid’s particular person brilliance nonetheless hasn’t, with Florida denying the Oilers a Stanley Cup for a second consecutive season.
