SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Matthew Tkachuk decided to go for a little swim as his offseason was beginning on Tuesday morning. The Florida Panthers forward took a few steps off the sand and into the water of Fort Lauderdale Beach, then dove in while hanging onto his new best friend.
The Stanley Cup got a little wet.
That moment — one of many from the first 12 hours or so of the Cup being in the possession of the newly crowned champion Panthers — was a long time coming, helping cap what really was a four-year process of rebuilding the team’s roster, coaching staff and style of play with hopes of making this title a reality.
“We had no choice,” Panthers owner Vincent Viola said. “We had to, as we say, we had to look for value where other people wouldn’t look. We were hamstrung as far as our cap space. And it worked out. It worked out.”
And the push to the mountaintop started with the hiring of general manager Bill Zito in September 2020.
Of the 19 players who played for Florida in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday night, only four were part of the organization before Zito arrived. Zito traded for Tkachuk — something that many in hockey said was a terrible move by Florida — two years ago, signed a slew of free agents, found guys on the waiver wire, whatever it took to fill a roster and make the cap math work.
The result: The Cup was in the ocean on Tuesday.
“It’s hard to put into words how humbling it is and how much respect you have for the game as a whole, especially for a guy who never played (in the NHL),” Zito said. “So, pretty special.”
Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad were drafted by the Panthers in 2013 and 2014, respectively. Sergei Bobrovsky was signed as a free agent in 2019. Eetu Luostarinen came to Florida in a trade in February 2020. Those are the four who played in Game 7 and were here before Zito was hired. Everyone else was brought in with this moment in mind.
Tkachuk was the splashy move. Paul Maurice might have proved to be the biggest move.
The story has been told countless times: Maurice was semi-retired, maybe done, maybe not, when Zito called a couple of years ago. The conversation got deep, quickly, and Maurice soon realized he was going to coach the Panthers. It came with an understanding for both him and Zito, that Florida — the team that had the NHL’s best regular-season record in the season before Maurice arrived — had to get tougher, had to play differently, and that meant the record would take some hits.
They never doubted one another. Pieces kept getting added, including Kyle Okposo and Vladimir Tarasenko just before the stretch run this season. Florida made the Cup final last year and now, the Panthers have won it all.
“These guys are different,” Maurice said. “It’s the way they treat each other. They love each other. It starts with Barkov and filters down. We have nine new guys this year and then we brought in Okposo and Tarasenko and you can’t tell that they’ve (not been here) 10 years. It’s nothing to do with the coach. Nothing. That room has been special since Day 1.”
The Panthers went to their first Cup final in 1996 and then went 26 years without winning another playoff series. They played in front of empty buildings, fended off rumors of contraction and relocation, made coaching changes on what seemed like an annual basis, were basically the league’s laughingstock and, going into Monday night, were on the cusp of an epic collapse — a 3-0 lead in the Stanley Cup Final was almost blown in a way that would have haunted the franchise forever.
No problem. All forgotten now.
Along the way, the Panthers went from trying to outscore everybody to a team that just stops them. The 2-1 win in the ultimate game of the 2023-24 season was the final proof of that.
The rebuild is done. A banner will sway. The Cup was floating in the Atlantic Ocean. The Panthers attracted such a crowd to the beach that police had to shut down a roadway for safety reasons. At Elbo Room, the Fort Lauderdale bar that Tkachuk has grown to love, he and teammates Sam Bennett and Anthony Stolarz led a chorus of singing “We Are The Champions” on Tuesday afternoon. The singing wasn’t great. The moment was.
“It’s so incredible,” Tkachuk said. “The best thing that happened to me in hockey was coming down here. I’m so happy. … It’s kind of crazy what that Cup does. It attracts people. It’s the most attractive thing in the world.”
MCDAVID WINS CONN SMYTHE
SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — Connor McDavid won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP on Monday night despite Edmonton’s Stanley Cup Final loss to Florida, a nod to one of the greatest postseason performances in NHL history.
McDavid, who was held without a point the final two games of the final, still led all playoff scorers with 42 points, five shy of the record of 47 set by Wayne Gretzky in 1985.
He did not return from the locker room to accept the trophy from Commissioner Gary Bettman, leaving it sitting on its stand while the Panthers celebrated nearby.
“It’s an honor with the names on that trophy, but yeah,” McDavid said.
McDavid was first on 16 of 17 ballots. Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov was second.
“I don’t think he cares,” longtime running mate Leon Draisaitl said. “I mean, it speaks to how amazing of a hockey player he is. There’s no player in the world that wants to win a Stanley Cup more than him. He does everything right, every single day, just to win it one day. It’s really hard with him being sad and being disappointed at the end.”
After not scoring (but still leading the team with three assists) through the first three games against Florida, McDavid changed the course of the series by doing something no other player in history has done, including Gretzky. He had four points in consecutive games in the final to keep the Oilers from being eliminated.
“You think about the year that Connor had: 100 assists, leading our team, the performance he had in this playoffs, especially in this final round when we’re down three games to zero and then he comes out with eight points in two games,” coach Kris Knoblauch said. “Yeah, he’s our leader, he’s our best player.”
McDavid is just the second skater after the Flyers’ Reggie Leach in 1976 to win the Conn Smythe on a team that lost in the final. Goaltenders Jean-Sebastien Giguere of Anaheim in 2003, Ron Hextall of Philadelphia in 1987, Glenn Hall of St. Louis in 1968 and Roger Crozier with Detroit in 1966 were also playoff MVPs after backstopping teams that fell just short of hoisting the Cup.
Asked how he was feeling nearly a half-hour after the loss, McDavid could only muster the words, “It sucks.”
McDavid, the reigning and three time Hart Trophy winner long considered the best hockey player in the world, put on a show in his first trip to the final. His goal and three assists in an 8-1 rout in Game 4 avoided a sweep, and his four points including an empty netter in Game 5 three nights later dragged the series back to Alberta.
Those who know McDavid believe it’s the year-round work he has put in throughout his career allowed him to thrive when the spotlight was at its brightest.
“He’s unique in his dedication to his craft,” said Hall of Famer Ken Hitchcock, who coached McDavid in 2018-19. “He’s very unique. He’s learned to be relentless, and he enjoys it and he’s very, very serious about his craft, and that becomes contagious when you’re on the team with him.”
Oilers players lauded McDavid not just for leading by example with his play but also off the ice.
“He’s the greatest player to ever play, in my book,” Draisaitl said. “So many things that a lot of people don’t see that he does, his work ethic. He singlehandedly turned our franchise around, pretty much. Just love sharing the ice with him. He’s just a really, really special person.”
That talk is justified for a player who led the league in scoring five times during the regular season and accomplished just about everything on an individual basis. What is still missing in the Stanley Cup, which will have to wait at least another year.
