By Nate Moser
After waiting 30 years and losing in their previous two Stanley Cup Final appearances, the Florida Panthers are Stanley Cup champions. It is a franchise that has gone through a lot over the years, including a 10-season gap where they failed to qualify for the playoffs. They had many great players come and go during that playoff drought too, including Olli Jokinen, Joe Nieuwendyk, Roberto Luongo, Jay Bouwmeester, Martin Gelinas, and Nathan Horton among others. What changed? How did the Panthers become one of the best teams in the NHL and finally clinch their first Cup championship? There are a few factors that played a role.
Getting the Right Management
The Panthers moved on from their previous general manager Dale Tallon in August 2020 and they were looking for the next executive who could take the franchise in the right direction. Bill Zito was someone who had already been making his name around the hockey world. He co-founded Acme World Sports, a player agency that has represented NHL players like Brian Rafalski and Tuukka Rask among others. More recently, Zito had been an assistant GM with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Panthers hired Zito to be the next GM for the team and that was the first move to help Florida get where they needed to be. As a sports team, there must be the right management in place. There is so much responsibility to running the roster of a team and any wrong moves could set an organization back multiple years. That is why sometimes teams do not win championships. Mismanagement can be very costly and damaging. There has to be the right people in place who will know what needs to be done and when. That separates managements who win titles and managements who are out the door in a few seasons. The Panthers chose Zito and they made the right choice by doing so. With the right GM in place, the next thing to step things up is the memorable trade that alters the course of the franchise.
The Huberdeau-Tkachuk Trade
With some sports teams, sometimes there is a trade that helps set the tone to get a team in the right position toward winning a championship. Zito made multiple great trades for the Panthers since becoming GM, but the move that will get so much attention was when he dealt Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar to the Calgary Flames for Matthew Tkachuk. Huberdeau had been a staple of the offense for Florida since he had been drafted by them third overall in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft. Weegar had also been a solid defenseman as well during his time with the Panthers. However, Zito decided he needed to make a move that would shake the core of the roster. It is something that some people believe the Toronto Maple Leafs need to do in order to push forward further in the playoffs – trading Mitch Marner or another member of their Core Four. The Panthers are proof that trading one of the best players can be beneficial. Tkachuk became a fan favorite for Florida immediately. He was a clutch talent for the team during their 2023 postseason run to the Cup Final and continued to be a leader for the squad on their way to the Cup this playoff run. Tkachuk during the last two seasons has been everything the Panthers could have wanted when they got him. He has posted the following stats prior to the 2024 postseason:
- 2022-23 regular season: 40 goals and 69 assists for 109 points in 79 games
- 2023 playoffs: 11 goals and 13 assists for 24 points in 20 games
- 2023-24 regular season: 26 goals and 62 assists for 88 points in 80 games
Zito deserves credit for pulling the trigger on this move and Tkachuk deserves credit for putting his blood, sweat, and tears into his play on the ice. He is one of the faces of this new era in Panthers history. It is an era that now has a championship tied to it as well.
Bobrovsky the Brick Wall
It was no secret how good Sergei Bobrovsky can be when he is on his game. After the first couple Cup Final games, he was even the frontrunner to win the Conn Smythe Trophy. It was apparent that he was the MVP of the 2024 playoffs. He obviously did not have the best games during the middle contests of the Cup Final, and was most likely a contributor to Connor McDavid winning the trophy instead for the Edmonton Oilers. The Oilers were only able to muster one goal in the first two games though thanks to Bob. This is a team who has two of the best players in the entire league in McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Draisaitl was stifled by the Panthers throughout the entire series, and Bob was a big reason for that. Specifically in Game 7, Bobrovsky made some highlight saves. His defensive teammates also saved the day a few times, but Bob was stellar when called upon.
Bobrovsky signed with the Panthers during the 2019 offseason to a seven-year, $70 million contract. Before he became a huge reason why Florida won their first Cup, there were times where the Panthers were criticized and laughed at for giving that big of a contract to Bobrovsky. Some people felt that he did not deserve it and there were times where that was the opinions on the Sports Insanity Network’s Breakaway Bandits podcast. There was talk among people in the hockey world that the Panthers needed to move his contract and that they would probably have to eat half of his salary in order to get him moved.
Zito was not the one who gave Bobrovsky the contract, but he deserves credit for believing in Bob to keep him around. Sometimes the biggest decisions involve not taking any action at all and that is what Zito did in this situation. This series would have been a whole different story if Bob had not been between the pipes for Florida, even with the games that he was not his best. At the end of the day, he still has a Cup ring now, and played a significant role in getting it for Florida. He was one of the biggest differences in this series with Edmonton. The Oilers had played well to a certain extent. Bob shut down the Oilers to an extent, especially when it mattered most in Game 7, and gave the Panthers’ offense their opportunities to clinch the Cup.
Bringing It All Together
There are other contributors to the Panthers winning their first Cup. Tkachuk was the big move discussed, but Florida also brought in Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, Brandon Montour, and Gustav Forsling among others. These players all have made their own impact on the Panthers, and they finally got the reward for it. It was not one factor but many good ones that led Florida to being on top of the hockey mountain. They waited a long time to get there but they were able to put everything together and win.
It will be interesting to see how Zito handles upcoming contracts for players like Reinhart and Montour. They both could make big money deals, so Zito will have some work to do to get his roster prepared to defend the Cup in 2024-25. He is the right man for the job though and even if he loses some players, he will figure out who to replace them with. He will have a ring on his finger now to prove that.
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