Inside Panthers’ Stanley Cup celebration, and why this year felt different

SUNRISE, Fla. – All you need to know about what makes the Florida Panthers special was revealed in the moments immediately after captain Aleksander Barkov got his hands back on the Stanley Cup on Tuesday.

Rather than taking a customary solo lap around the ice at Amerant Bank Arena, Barkov skated directly into a red swarm of his teammates after NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman presented him with the shiny silver trophy for the second straight spring.

Barkov wasn’t done there.

The Panthers captain orchestrated a Cup pass line that saw every first-time winner get their hands on it before the team’s stars took a twirl. That started with Nate Schmidt and Seth Jones, two veteran NHLers who joined the Panthers after last year’s victory over the Edmonton Oilers, but also included multiple players who didn’t see a minute of game action during the entire playoffs.

“I didn’t know, honestly,” said Schmidt, a first-time champion in his 12th NHL season. “He just looked at me and he gave me the captain death stare. You don’t turn those eyes away. They said, ‘We’re gonna take a back seat to you guys.’ It means a lot.

“Yeah … this group is really special. And now we’ll be able to share this memory forever.”

You won’t find an NHL team that battles its way to the top of the mountain without being close, but these Panthers took the “we before me” ethos to a new level. After accepting the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, Sam Bennett waited another 10 minutes to hoist the Stanley Cup while 16 of his teammates got the honor ahead of him.

Only here would it be possible for Evan Cormier to get a spot in line ahead of Bennett or Sam Reinhart, who scored four goals on four shots in Tuesday’s Cup-clinching win. The third-string goaltender probably won’t even get his name engraved in the trophy this summer after playing 36 games for the ECHL’s Savannah Ghost Pirates this season.

Barkov initially reminded him to pass the Stanley Cup to general manager Bill Zito from the end of the player line, but a group of his teammates pushed him out there much sooner than that. Instead, he ended up handing the trophy off to Sergei Bobrovsky, the first repeat champion to get it after the newcomers had each been recognized.

“It’s surreal. I’m speechless right now,” Cormier said. “I didn’t butt in front of anybody, I was just waiting my turn. They just told me to go.”

Tomas Nosek, who along with Schmidt was part of the Vegas Golden Knights expansion team that lost in the Stanley Cup Final to the Washington Capitals in 2018, was another of the first-time winners who received the Cup before Bennett, Reinhart, Matthew Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe.

His Stanley Cup Final got off to a rocky start when in Game 1 in overtime, he flipped a puck over the glass for a penalty that resulted in Leon Draisaitl’s power-play winner.

That’s one big reason that after the game Nosek embraced coach Paul Maurice, who stood behind him and kept playing him. The 32-year-old broke down on Maurice’s left shoulder.

“Indescribable,” Nosek said. “There still is so many emotions. Can’t figure out which one is which. It’s happiness. It’s belief. It’s dream come true. It’s everything mixed up. I’m just so happy I got the chance to sign here.”

Maurice said that moment with Nosek will be one of the most special memories of his career.

“What a wonderful thing for those guys to be on the ice when it went to zero,” Maurice said of his fourth liners, which included A.J. Greer and Jonah Gadjovich. “We’re in trouble. We’re down 2-0 to Toronto, and those three guys came in and they changed our fortune and earned the right to be on the ice at the end.

“That’s a tough way to start your final (for Nosek). We shared things (as we hugged). I missed a line change in one of the games that cost us a goal that cost us a game, in my mind. But the players rally around you and take care of you. So that was kind of like the two guys who screwed up. That was very special for me. That will be one that I’ll never forget.”

For Schmidt, who took 1 million dollars less from the Panthers than he could have received elsewhere, the move to Florida reinvigorated his career. He spent the playoffs writing his young child emails about what’s been going on in his life.

He said he couldn’t wait to write the final chapter about winning the Stanley Cup – something they’ll eventually share when his boy learns how to read.

“It doesn’t really register right away,” Schmidt said. “Can’t really feel it until that Cup comes out on the ice. You don’t really know until you see it, feel it. It’s got its own heartbeat.”

Schmidt said there’s a reason so many players the past three years have come to Florida and had career years.

“Just completely selfless,” he said. “Guys just play one way, and they say, ‘Hey, this is how we do things,’ and you’ve got to jump on board. And guys, they mold themselves, and you just become another cog in the wheel here. That’s just the way it runs. It’s just a well-oiled machine. You just don’t know how you’re going to fit in, right? You come into the group that just brings you right in from the beginning. I couldn’t be more blessed.”

And then there’s Jones, who publicly begged to get out of Chicago before Zito came to the rescue. He was acquired from the basement-dwelling Blackhawks on March 2.

“This feeling itself is amazing,” said Jones, standing next to his father, former NBA player Popeye Jones. “It’s lighter than you think. When you’re so just amped up, your adrenaline, you’re carrying it, and you lift it and all the fans are going nuts, you want to hold it forever. You get your lap with it. You kiss it. It’s just a great feeling.

“All the hard work you put in – the day in and day out, the workouts, the practices, the training camp, everything – it all comes together, and it’s all worth it. I talked to these guys on the phone. I talked to Bill. This was the only goal. This is their only thing they have in mind. They want to win another one, and I’m so happy they believed in me and wanted me to come here.”

The Panthers already owned the Stanley Cup after a seven-game series win in 2024, also over Edmonton, but they needed reinforcements to take a run at it again. Less than a week after last year’s final, they said goodbye to nearly all of the depth that fueled the run, including two top-six defensemen, four bottom-six forwards and the backup goaltender.

How enthusiastically they embraced a former nemesis in Marchand after a deadline-day trade with the Boston Bruins spoke volumes. He wound up contributing 10 goals during these playoffs, including two overtime winners.

“Billy just went out and got (Marchand), and he meant everything to us,” said Rick Dudley, the senior adviser to Zito. “You can’t have enough of those types of people. He went after this guy, and boy was it a clutch move. I don’t know that we’re here without him.”

What’s scary for the Oilers and the rest of the league is how much the Panthers widened the gap this second go-round.

The Oilers may have won two games in overtime, but make no mistake, this series wasn’t close.

No team in NHL history played with the lead longer in a Stanley Cup Final than the Panthers. And on a night the Oilers’ stars were again blanketed, Barkov (two assists), Reinhart (four goals), Tkachuk (the Cup-clincher), Verhaeghe (three assists) and Bobrovsky (a near shutout) had monster games.

Ask any of the Panthers, though, and they’ll tell you that every member of their entourage had a hand in seeing them through a difficult playoff journey that included 10 road victories.

“It takes everyone,” Marchand said.

“On the road, it was together – no matter what,” Tkachuk added. “Like every single person, trainers, everything. We’d go to the lounge, and every single person (was there). This team is as tight of a team as you’re going to find in pro sports, and that’s a huge reason why we won.”

There was no denying that when it came time for them to take another dance with Stanley, the feeling on the ice was a little different. Less exuberance, but maybe a touch more satisfaction.

“The awareness that it doesn’t go captain to captain to captain to Sam Reinhart, who scored four,” Maurice said.

“The awareness of each other. All those guys that touched it first, it was their first Cup, so that’s what makes these men special. To be aware of that, they’re just not selfish at all. There’s no pecking order.”

“This is a team that plays for each other,” owner Vinnie Viola said, “What championship team hands the Cup to every (new) guy? It comes natural to them. They’re servant leaders. They always put other people before themselves. They really do. You can see it on the ice. Really special. There’s no ego at all.”

For all the brute force the Panthers often display in the heat of battle, there was something beautiful about the love they showed, too. The way they looked out for each other and looked after each other. A true example for 31 other NHL organizations to strive for.

“It’s actually not the Stanley Cups,” Maurice said. “Watching these guys interact with each other, that’s been the gift (of) this place.”

Although the Stanley Cups are nice, too.