Maybe the Florida Panthers run is over. Three straight Eastern Conference Final series victories and back-to-back Stanley Cup titles. With the team 10 points out of a playoff spot just days before the trade deadline and coming off a 5-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils, it looks like they will wave the white flag on the season.
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The Panthers dynasty, or at least the modern dynasty, is coming to an end. Now, we can look back at the run, or what they’ve done so far, and wonder. How good was this run? Is it over, and if there are any historical ramifications from the success in Sunrise?
Where The Panthers Run Ranks
It’s easy to shrug at this run that the Panthers put together, considering how many great teams have won multiple Cups in NHL history. It wasn’t even that long ago that a team won back-to-back titles in their stat,e with the Tampa Bay Lightning winning two in a row in 2020 and 2021.
The Panthers aren’t a better or more memorable team than the Montreal Canadiens of the 1970s, the New York Islanders of the 1980s, the Edmonton Oilers of the 80s, or even the Chicago Blackhawks in the past decade. That said, their recent success shouldn’t be overlooked either. To go on three deep playoff runs and win the Cup in dominant fashion says a lot about the team they built, and that’s likely where they will be remembered most.
The common perception around the NHL is to build a team by drafting and developing. The Panthers only have two key players on their team who were drafted by them. Otherwise, general manager (GM) Bill Zito created a modern dynasty through trades and big free agent signings.
The Panthers also changed the perspective on where to start and what positions to prioritize. Many teams build from the net out with at least one core player on their defense. The Panthers built from the forward unit out while patching their defense together, whether it was the Oliver Ekman-Larsson addition or the Seth Jones trade.
It explains the ideas that the rest of the league has copied in recent years. The Panthers proved that to build a Cup team, you must take a swing, even if it means giving up a lot. With the trade deadline around the corner, the big swing might be needed to land another star in the coming days and it might be what results in a Cup.
Are The Panthers Done?
This version of the Panthers is done. They will likely shut down a handful of veterans for the season and will add youth in the offseason. Sergei Bobrovsky is a free agent after the season, and moving on from him would signal the true end of an era.
That said, the Panthers can wave the flag on this season and return next season ready to win a Cup. The injuries and the fatigue got to them but next season, they’ll have a healthy Aleksander Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, and a star-powered lineup. Throw in a young player or two whom they acquire at the deadline, and they’ll once again look like a dominant team in the Eastern Conference.
They’ll be in the mix to win the Cup. That said, the landscape in the NHL has changed around them. While some teams have declined (looking at you, Maple Leafs), the rest of the division improved in the meantime. It’s made their path back to the top tougher. Yet, they’ll still have many of the core that can win in the playoffs, and a third Cup in four years will open up the conversation again about where this team stands in hockey history.
The Significance of the Panthers Success
The thing many hockey fans will point to, something that gave the Panthers an advantage in a hard-cap era, is the state taxes (or the lack of them). The Panthers could sign and keep big-name players, knowing they had the leverage over New York, Toronto, and other big markets.
The Panthers, of course, had to put together a competitive team before the taxes became an advantage. Arizona, for example, had the same advantages as Florida, yet its incompetence both on and off the ice resulted in a relocation to Utah. Once the Panthers put it all together, like the Lightning before them, they became a sleeping giant that nobody could stop (except Father Time and injuries).
The Lightning and the Panthers also speak to the success of hockey in Florida. The most significant boost to hockey in Southern, non-traditional hockey markets was the Wayne Gretzky trade. However, the other big boost, especially in recent years, is the success of the Florida teams. It wasn’t long ago that the league saw both teams as punchlines; now they are the teams nobody wants to face. The Lightning showed it, and the Panthers with their run confirmed it.
