Panthers’ journey from NHL punch line to Stanley Cup champs

SUNRISE, Fla. — Aleksander Barkov did not simply raise the Stanley Cup after defeating the Oilers in Recreation 7.

He lifted shut to a few a long time of failures, embarrassments and frustration off the shoulders of the gamers, the followers and this franchise.

The Florida Panthers are Stanley Cup champions. Not a punch line. Not being mocked for meager attendance. Not wallowing in mediocrity, on and off the ice, because the crew went 25 years between playoff sequence victories.

Oh, there might have been extra embarrassment. Like, the most embarrassment. Florida practically fumbled the bag in opposition to Edmonton, changing into simply the third crew in NHL historical past to blow a 3-0 Stanley Cup Closing sequence result in drive a Recreation 7. They may have been the Atlanta Falcons in Tremendous Bowl LI or Greg Norman within the 1996 Masters or the 1942 Detroit Purple Wings, the one crew in NHL historical past to lose the Stanley Cup Closing after successful the primary three video games.

It might have been very “Florida Panthers” to have performed that. However that is not who this franchise is anymore. They don’t seem to be a joke. They’re Stanley Cup champions.

It is wholly applicable that Florida received the Stanley Cup in opposition to a Canadian crew — a nation that considered the Panthers as both relocation bait or a crew located in a hotter local weather by which to look at their very own groups at considerably decrease ticket prices; and that they eradicated the NHL-leading New York Rangers within the convention finals, the sort of esteemed Authentic Six crew that’s handed the respect the Panthers have clawed to earn.

These groups got here near championships. The Panthers are those who completed the story, changing into simply the third crew prior to now 40 years to win the Stanley Cup after shedding within the Closing within the earlier postseason.

However maybe most extremely: The Florida Panthers — the Florida Panthers! — at the moment are a status franchise within the NHL.

“It is fairly freakin’ cool,” defenseman Aaron Ekblad, who’s second to Barkov in profession video games performed as a Panther, stated. “It wasn’t straightforward these first few years. There was plenty of studying and rising. New GMs, new coaches … that revolving door was powerful, proper? The truth that we’re at this level now, the place the expectation is to make the playoffs, and the expectation is to problem for a championship, that is a very cool factor. I am so completely happy to have been by way of all of it with this franchise.”

Barkov caught with them. Ekblad caught with them. And extra South Florida followers than you’d understand caught with them, from the rat-tossing mid-Nineties to their Stanley Cup parade this season.

WHEN FLORIDA WINGER Evan Rodrigues was rising up in Toronto, the media coated solely Canadian groups and successful groups.

“So I might say I in all probability wasn’t centered on the Panthers an excessive amount of,” the 30-year-old stated.

Fellow Ontario native Ryan Lomberg, 29, remembered how the Panthers had been coated on social media.

“I bear in mind seeing footage of the empty enviornment. Seeing all of the crimson seats and seeing perhaps a pair thousand followers. Being a child from Toronto, I bear in mind probably not understanding how the distinction [with other teams] was so excessive,” he stated. “It does not even make sense to me the way it was again then. The second I received right here 4 years in the past, the followers have been superb. We now have a powerful following.”

Florida’s attendance woes had been a league-wide punch line, and the franchise did nothing to discourage it.

“In 2004, whereas I used to be in school in Orlando, I met a man who was a Lightning fan whereas I used to be watching the finals at a bar,” Panthers fan David Roth stated. “I informed him I used to be a Panthers fan, and he checked out me with a glance of absolute bewilderment and simply stated, ‘Why?’ As if it had been so overseas an idea to be a fan of a crew in Florida apart from the Lightning.”

In 2006, the Panthers had been averaging over 4,100 free tickets handed out for every residence recreation. In 2008, the crew launched the “First Timer” program, by which anybody with a sound Florida driver’s license might get two free tickets to a recreation.

In 2010, after LeBron James made his determination to take his skills to South Seashore, the Panthers responded by providing season tickets within the higher deck for $6 per recreation, ostensibly in honor of his new uniform quantity with the Warmth. Even that worth level did not generate sufficient gross sales — the crew introduced that summer time that it was going to tarp off 2,000 higher deck seats for many residence video games.

“While you go 25 years between playoff sequence wins, after which solely make the playoffs a few instances throughout that span, you lose a few generations of followers,” Florida CEO Matthew Caldwell stated.

Caldwell ascended to his place in 2016, having labored with proprietor Vinny Viola for a number of years.

Viola, who bought the crew in 2013, is one in all a handful of majority house owners throughout the crew’s turbulent historical past. They had been based as an enlargement crew by billionaire Wayne Huizenga, who initially wished to call them the “Block Busters” in honor of his video rental chain.

He offered the franchise to pharmaceutical businessman Alan Cohen and former NFL quarterback Bernie Kosar in 2001. Cliff Viner grew to become common associate in 2010, and made two strikes that may arrange Florida for later success: Hiring former Chicago Blackhawks GM Dale Tallon as head of hockey operations, and tasking him with rebuilding by way of the draft.

When Viola took over, the true work started to restore the Panthers’ status. It began with the best way they ticketed video games.

“There was plenty of comp tickets. Simply all these gimmicks to get folks into the world,” Caldwell stated. “That does not work in the long run. It actually angers your season-ticket holders whenever you’re giving out all these freebies and promotions to folks off the streets.”

With the crew’s attendance struggles got here fixed relocation hypothesis.

“There have been all these rumors that we ought to be moved,” Caldwell stated. “That this new possession group was fixing it up and making an attempt to relocate to Quebec on the time. These had been the headwinds we needed to cope with.”

The chatter received so loud that house owners Viola and Doug Cifu wrote a letter to followers in 2014 to guarantee them the Panthers weren’t relocating. “Our plan is to construct a company that makes South Florida proud and to win the Stanley Cup in South Florida,” they stated.

However even the Panthers’ personal municipality was fueling relocation hypothesis. Broward County did a full evaluation of the Panthers franchise, and extra broadly on whether or not or not there ought to be a hockey crew in South Florida.

Apparently, the County discovered sufficient causes to decide to the Panthers, agreeing to a brand new enviornment lease that put Viola’s crew on strong monetary footing.

“It felt like a miracle on the time,” Caldwell stated. “However I believe the county checked out it like, ‘Hey, that is our final shot to see if the game works right here.'”

Whereas the crew was getting its monetary home so as, Caldwell’s subsequent process was making an attempt to energise a fan base that had sunk into malaise.

“When there is a fan base that is mad and indignant and searching for a savior, that is really somewhat encouraging. A minimum of you realize, they’re on the market and for those who do the appropriate factor, they’ll come again,” he stated. “The issue is that our fan base had develop into detached. There was nonetheless like 3,000 or so season-ticket holders that had been loyal and wished to see this occur. However plenty of the informal followers, former season-ticket holders, had given up.”

Going 24 seasons between playoff wins will try this to a franchise. However Caldwell stated getting their home so as off the ice was vital for what would occur on the ice over the subsequent decade.

WHEN THE COLORADO AVALANCHE celebrated their Stanley Cup Closing sweep of the Panthers in 1996, they skated by way of an ever-increasing pile of plastic rats.

The rat-tossing stems from a legendary second in 1995-96 when ahead Scott Mellanby used his keep on with exterminate a rat within the locker room earlier than a recreation. He then used the identical stick to attain two targets that night time — undertaking what his teammates referred to as “a rat trick.” To this present day, rubber rats can be found for buy within the official Florida crew retailer for $5 every, with the shop promoting upward of 150 on recreation days.

The plastic rats had been symbolic of what the franchise had created in its third NHL season: custom. The Cinderella run bonded hockey followers and minted new ones. A number of days after the 1996 Closing, the Panthers hosted 15,000 followers at Miami Enviornment for a celebration of that season’s success.

The hopes had been excessive that this was the beginning of one thing particular for the franchise — then they did not win one other playoff sequence till 25 seasons later.

“It was brutal. There have been so a few years within the wilderness,” Panthers fan Scott Kandell stated. “We all the time appeared to have one or two good gamers with promise — like Nathan Horton, Stephen Weiss and Olli Jokinen — however possession’s reply was all the time to usher in older gamers previous their prime to attempt to create depth getting over the hump. And it was all the time with horrible outcomes.”

From 1996 to 2022, the Panthers had the Twenty fifth-best regular-season factors proportion (.513) and the worst playoff document (13-29) within the NHL. There have been exhilarating highlights throughout that in any other case moribund run — Pavel Bure’s back-to-back goal-scoring titles, Roberto Luongo’s Corridor of Fame goaltending — but additionally draft busts, younger gamers traded too quickly and a string of underwhelming groups.

“It wasn’t enjoyable being the butt of attendance jokes (you realize, when these jokes had been really respectable), by no means seeing a playoff sequence, house owners actually handing tickets out at no cost,” Panthers fan Max Horowitz stated. “It was all an enormous bummer to see contemplating the start of the franchise had such speedy outcomes and promise going for it.”

When Viola bought the crew, Jonathan Huberdeau (No. 3 general, 2011), and Barkov (No. 2, 2013) had been drafted. Ekblad (No. 1) would be a part of them in 2014.

However success did not observe straight away. There have been 5 teaching adjustments. There was an inner battle between Tallon and the “Laptop Boys” — the moniker given to the data-driven entrance workplace by some members of the Canadian media — that bred an inconsistent philosophy and unhealthy selections, like letting Jonathan Marchessault slip away within the Vegas enlargement draft.

At one level, Tallon was demoted as GM in 2016, then reinstated in 2017.

Nevertheless it was Tallon’s presence in 2019 that helped the Panthers obtain an vital turning level of their path to success: luring Joel Quenneville to teach the crew. Tallon had beforehand employed him to teach the Blackhawks.

After Chicago fired Quenneville, the Panthers swooped in with a big monetary provide and the possibility to work with Tallon once more. He accepted.

“He was clearly a sizzling commodity on the time popping out of Chicago,” Caldwell stated. “After we had been in a position to land him, I believe lots of people stated, ‘Wow, you realize, Joel can go anyplace and he picks Florida.’ We definitely provided a very good contract, however different large franchises wished him, too. After which we signed Bob.”

Florida handed two-time Vezina Trophy winner and free agent goalie Sergei Bobrovsky of the Columbus Blue Jackets a seven-year deal, with an annual common worth of $10 million, in summer time 2019. Up to now, the franchise struggled to draw free brokers. Now, one of many prime ones had chosen them.

Tallon was fired in 2020 after 10 seasons with the crew.

“After we bought the Panthers in 2013, we did so with a singular objective: to win a Stanley Cup. We now have not seen our efforts come to fruition,” Viola stated on the time.

Florida had 23 interviews for the overall supervisor job. Caldwell stated they “scoured the Earth” to search out the appropriate candidate. They discovered him in Columbus: assistant GM Invoice Zito, a former agent, was introduced on to run the Panthers.

The crew confirmed enchancment beneath Quenneville, though they nonetheless could not advance previous the primary spherical.

After which, on Oct. 28, 2021, the Quenneville Period ended.

Quenneville resigned as head coach of the Panthers following a gathering with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman about his involvement within the Blackhawks’ sexual abuse case.

An investigation by the regulation agency Jenner & Block regarded into the allegations that former video coach Brad Aldrich sexually assaulted and harassed participant Kyle Seashore throughout the crew’s 2010 Stanley Cup run. The investigation revealed that Quenneville was conscious of the state of affairs and took half in no less than one assembly relating to the allegations throughout the 2010 postseason.

Quenneville had beforehand stated he solely realized of the allegations in the summertime of 2021 “by way of the media.”

Caldwell stated the Panthers’ ahead momentum as a company might have been “100% derailed” by Quenneville’s resignation, as he had two extra seasons price over $15 million complete left on his contract.

“We had this nice coach and we had been blindsided by all of it. We began the season 7-0 after which the information broke,” Caldwell stated.

Affiliate coach Andrew Brunette stepped in as interim coach, and led the Panthers to their first Presidents’ Trophy with the league’s greatest document. He additionally coached them to their first playoff sequence victory since 1996, over the Washington Capitals. However after the Panthers had been swept out by the Tampa Bay Lightning within the second spherical, Brunette wasn’t retained.

ENTER PAUL MAURICE.

He had resigned as coach of the Winnipeg Jets in December 2021, suggesting the crew wanted a unique voice. He wasn’t certain if he’d get one other head-coaching job and was content material with that.

Maurice was within the midst of “4 phenomenal days of fishing” when Zito referred to as him. They began speaking hockey, and instantly linked.

“I used to be good, proper? I had given all that I believed I needed to give, definitely been lucky within the recreation and obtained excess of I gave,” Maurice stated. “However there’s simply these unusual little issues that meant Florida was proper, that it was the place I used to be imagined to be subsequent.”

The Panthers employed Maurice on June 22, 2022. By this time, Zito was deep into shaping a championship roster.

His first transfer as common supervisor was a stabilizing one: buying and selling for Penguins ahead Patric Hornqvist, a Stanley Cup champion who ended up being a culture-developer for Florida.

Then got here banger after banger: signing Carter Verhaeghe as a free agent; buying and selling for defenseman Brandon Montour and winger Sam Reinhart from Buffalo; getting heart Sam Bennett from Calgary; snagging defenseman Gustav Forsling off waivers, a participant who Maurice just lately stated is “one of the best on this planet” within the type that he performs.

Then got here the massive swing, one month after hiring Maurice: buying and selling Huberdeau and defenseman MacKenzie Weegar to Calgary for star ahead Matthew Tkachuk, whom Zito referred to as a “generational expertise” after the deal.

“Our construct was gradual, after which when Invoice received right here, it has been like a turbo increase,” Caldwell stated.

It wasn’t simply that Tkachuk can be a star participant for the Panthers — carrying them to the Stanley Cup Closing final season and enjoying a significant function of their success on this run — however that he dedicated to the Panthers with a contract that runs by way of 2029-30.

“I believe we’re all very proud to be part of that tradition shift. It was once that gamers would come and sort of fade away and finish their profession right here,” Lomberg stated. “Now it is the place the massive canines like Matt Tkachuk need to come and need to set up themselves and construct that legacy. So we’re exceptionally fortunate to be part of the Florida Panthers and very proud to be the place we’re at.”

For years, a laughingstock. Then instantly a vacation spot. Now, lastly, a champion.

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ZITO REMEMBERED THE FEELING after the 2023 Stanley Cup Closing.

The Panthers had a miraculous run by way of the Jap Convention: stunning the Bruins, rolling by way of the Maple Leafs after which sweeping the Hurricanes. However accidents and ineffectiveness had them fall brief to the Golden Knights, shedding in 5 video games.

“I can let you know how rotten it felt going residence empty-handed. How everybody had that feeling of their abdomen,” Zito stated.

That dissatisfaction was mirrored in coaching camp. “Paul’s camps are actually intense and plenty of laborious work. You may’t give up at any time,” Barkov stated.

Tkachuk’s one-word evaluation: “Brutal.”

However Maurice stated that it was in regards to the gamers coming to camp with an all-business angle. It was now not about hoping to make a Stanley Cup Closing — it was anticipated to be there once more, and nearly determining one of the best path to get there.

“We now have that bitter style in our mouth nonetheless, and our mindset this yr is totally completely different than final yr, when it was somewhat bit ‘completely happy to be there and benefit from the expertise,'” Bennett stated. “This yr, it is all enterprise. We now have one objective in thoughts, and we’re not going to be happy till we accomplish that.”

One essential change of their mindset got here due to harm: Ekblad and Montour missed the beginning of the season after surgical procedure. That inspired the crew’s management to rededicate the Panthers defensively. They went from twenty first within the league final season in goals-against common (3.32) to tied for first this season (2.41).

The work they did within the playoffs in opposition to star opponents mirrored that dedication. By means of Recreation 3 of the Stanley Cup Closing, the Panthers did not surrender a 5-on-5 objective to McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins or Zach Hyman; nor did they provide up one in prior playoff sequence to Artemi Panarin, Chris Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, David Pastrnak or Nikita Kucherov.

“For as many offensive guys we’ve got on the crew, we’re a defense-first crew,” Tkachuk stated.

The fixed of their defensive effort was Bobrovsky.

“It is phenomenal simply to look at him work each day. He makes all these saves, and he is all the time in the appropriate place it looks like throughout the video games, and that is not accidentally. It is due to how dialed in he’s in his preparation,” commerce deadline acquisition Kyle Okposo stated. “I believe that is been probably the most enjoyable half for me: simply watching him each day and the way it’s translating to the video games.”

There was a time when Bobrovsky was seen as an overhyped, overpaid netminder who was crushed by the load of his contract. Now, he is Playoff Bob.

Perceptions change. Simply ask the Florida Panthers.

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ZITO STARTED TO NOTICE the elevated curiosity within the Panthers after final season.

“After I walked the canine the primary couple years, nobody stated a phrase to me,” he stated throughout a media availability with Maurice. “Now the neighbor kind of is aware of who I’m.”

“They stopped calling the cops on you?” the coach requested, deadpan.

“Yeah,” Zito stated, laughing. “And also you’re beginning to see increasingly Panthers stuff. It is fantastic. It is actually thrilling for the sport.”

That is the second for which Viola, Caldwell and the Panthers’ possession crew have been aiming. That is the second towards which Zito has been constructing. Florida successful the Stanley Cup is the end result of their work to alter the notion, vibe, personnel and success of this crew.

“It is actually nothing in need of … properly, ‘thrilling’ might be somewhat an excessive amount of,” Zito stated. “However as somebody who grew up loving the sport and by no means having performed within the NHL, to see the followers and to listen to from your pals — ‘Oh, I went there and I could not get in as a result of it was packed’ — is superb.”

Barkov has waited his complete profession for it.

“It is one of the best time of my life proper now. I am having fun with each single day and making these playoff runs,” he stated.

The Panthers had been 29-45-8 in Barkov’s first season. They’d two completely different coaches. Their main scorer was Nick Bjugstad.

A decade later, they’re Stanley Cup champions.

“There is a cycle within the NHL. That is true of the good franchises, too. We used to enter Chicago and there is 5,200 folks in that constructing. Detroit for some time needed to give away a automotive a recreation to get folks to the sport,” he stated. “A few of these phenomenal franchises. However they must be constructed, after which I assume they must be maintained. We’re hopeful we’re constructing it now.”

Cup in hand, the Panthers at the moment are confronted with an equally difficult process: sustaining success.

“In sports activities, all the things’s about consistency,” Caldwell stated. “In the event you simply have one good season, it is nice. However the market’s sensible. They need to just be sure you’re going to be good for a few years, you realize?”

Panthers fan Jeffrey Alterman agrees.

“You understand South Florida’s sports activities status,” he stated. “We’re a successful city. In the event you’re successful, we’re coming. So that they must hold successful.”

Rodrigues feels the franchise has turned the nook. It is now a vacation spot for gamers and can proceed to be one.

“I believe for those who get the appropriate folks concerned, and also you construct a spot the place folks need to come, they’re going to come,” he stated. “Take a look at our new apply facility. It is state-of-the-art. In the event you’re between a pair locations and also you come down right here and have a look at our facility and you then’re in South Florida, it is laborious to say no to. I’ve actually loved it this yr, and I will not take away, although, that successful might be the largest factor.”

The Panthers have seen how fleeting success could be within the NHL, going 25 years between the rat-tossing euphoria of their 1996 Stanley Cup Closing run to their subsequent playoff victory. In between, they squandered momentum, wasted good religion and alienated generations of followers.

However they are saying it will be completely different this time.

“Profitable it’s the pinnacle of all the things we have been speaking about over the past 10 years. I believe we have already established plenty of credibility, however successful the precise Cup the primary time in franchise historical past is the icing on the cake on all the things that we have been constructing right here,” Caldwell stated. “We have all the time been very clear that we can’t cease till we deliver a Stanley Cup to our followers. And we’re not going to cease after that, both.”