The Florida Men have just begun to party

Panthers wrap up another Stanley Cup as they enter their prime years.

Sam Reinhart

As is their custom, the Panthers fans sang “Livin’ On A Prayer” during the third period Tuesday night, which could have been Edmonton’s theme song, too. All the Oilers’ hopes of winning a Stanley Cup Final rematch with Florida turned out to be tuneless graveyard-whistling, cheap talk that wouldn’t walk. The Panthers won Game 6, 5-2, and won the Cup again, and even though it’s nasty to talk dynasty after just two championships, conditions in the Everglades and the Gulf of Mexico are favorable for steady reign. Certainly this most competitive of NHL seasons ended with no doubt, or split decision. The Panthers, who never had home ice in the whole playoffs, won their four elimination games by an aggregate of 22-8.

They didn’t lose a game in regulation time to Edmonton. They gave Connor McDavid only one goal. As Mark Spector of Sportsnet pointed out,, they had the lead for nearly 256 minutes of the Final, and the Oilers had it for nearly 34. They scored at least two goals in every first period, putting the games in the glove of Sergei Bobrovsky, the 36-year-old goaltender who was once considered overpaid.

On Tuesday, Sam Reinhart jumped on a puck that Eric Bouchard handled tentatively and scored the first of his four goals. The Oilers seemed to gain their footing for a while, but then Eetu Luostarinen cruised down the ice, got McDavid and Jake Walman to converge on him, and flicked the puck to Matthew Tkachuk, who had just come off the bench and was somehow ignored. That goal made it 2-0 after one period. The Panthers never quit pushing, all the way to the two empty-net goals Reinhart scored at the end. They played as if they believed the Oilers still had life, a belief that had left the Oilers at least an hour before.

Certainly the Panthers remembered 2024, when they led Edmonton 3-0 in the Final and had to sweat out a 2-1 win in Game 7 to avoid the ultimate shame. Someone asked Panthers coach Paul Maurice, on Monday, how it felt to be one win away from the Cup. “You asked me that question four times last year,” he replied.

Sam Bennett won the Conn Smythe Award for leading the playoffs in goal-scoring, but the award could have gone to Bobrovsky or Brad Marchand. Maurice had faith in all four lines and all three defense pairs, while Edmonton leaned on McDavid and Leon Draisaitl until they bent. Reinhart and Florida captain Aleksander Barkov only played 30 minutes once in the series, and that was in the double-overtime Game 2 win. Tkachuk and Bennett never played more than 23. The Oilers called upon McDavid for three 30-minute games.

With all that strength and virtuosity, the Panthers weren’t always a lock to get here. They were down 2-0 in games to Toronto, and down 3-1 in goals in Game 3. They got it into overtime, and Marchand, whom they lifted from Boston at the trade deadline, fired a shot that bounced off the Maple Leafs’ Morgan Rielly and into the net. Then they had to play a Game 7 in Toronto, against the collective scream of an entire dominion. Their answer was their second 6-1 win over Toronto in a five-day period. Aside from that series, Florida was 12-4 in the postseason.

After the buzzer and the usual dogpile in the corner Tuesday, with gloves flying everywhere, Barkov conferred with his teammates. He knew he’d be getting the Cup first, from commissioner Gary Bettman, but who would get it next? The pattern was immediately clear. Nate Schmidt was the first honoree, then Seth Jones, then Jonah Gadjovich….everyone who didn’t get to hold the Cup when Florida won it last year. Behind them came Vitek Vanecek, Mackie Samoskevich, Uvis Balinskis and the others who hadn’t played a minute in the Final but had filled the gaps during the regular season. You are justified in rolling your eyes over “culture” talk, a buzzword that has filtered down from the major leagues to T-ball, but this was an example you could touch.

“When I came here, it’s not that I never coached people like this,” said Maurice, who has won the Cup in both years as head coach. “I’d never even met people like this. Evan Rodrigues said it best, last year. He said it was the first place where he could just be himself.”

But as Wayne Gretzky pointed out on TNT, some teams sing Kumbaya by the campfire each night and never make it to the playoffs. This is an absurdly talented team, especially in the hard salary cap era.

Barkov was the second player picked in the 2013 draft. Jones was fourth, by Nashville. Aaron Ekblad was the first player picked in the 2014 draft. Reinhart was second, by Buffalo. Bennett was fourth, by Calgary.

Tkachuk was the sixth player picked in the 2016 draft, also by Calgary, after Olli Juolevi, his London Knights teammate, was picked fifth by Vancouver. Jesse Puljujarvi was picked fourth, by Edmonton. He now plays for the Charlotte Checkers, Florida’s American Hockey League affiliate, who are playing Abbotsford in the league finals.

There were some sleepers, like Carter Verhaeghe, perhaps the Panthers’ best clutch goal producer over this run of three straight Eastern Conference championships. Verhaeghe slipped through the Toronto organization before he was able to win a Cup with Tampa Bay. Defenseman Gustav Forsling, who would be the unquestioned No. 1 on most teams but is on the second pair with Florida, was a fifth round pick in 2014 by Vancouver, went to Chicago, and was eventually waived by Carolina.

Every one of those players is squarely in prime time, and most of them have committed to Florida, and each other.

Barkov is a Panther through 2030, at $10 million a year. Tkachuk the same, at $9.5M. Reinhart has signed for $8.6 million per, through 2032. Verhaeghe makes $7 million a year through 2033. Jones, whom the Panthers got from Chicago for goalie Spencer Knight at the trade deadline, makes $7 million through 2030. Forsling is at $5.75 million through 2032. Almost all of them can claim to be underpaid by now, but they didn’t seem discontented on Tuesday night.

Bennett, Marchand and Ekblad are free agents. When asked about Bennett’s appeal to other NHL clubs, the eternally droll Maurice said, “Well, he has a terrible attitude. Nobody likes him. He has the bubonic plague and dengue fever. So I don’t know if anyone should be interested.”

And Bobrovsky’s $10-million-a-year deal expires after next season. What to do?

Well, the Panthers somehow are $19 million underneath next year’s projected cap, according to PuckPedia, which is why neither Maurice nor general manager Bill Zito seemed worried about Bennett. Ekblad, the longest-serving Panther but also a guy who missed 20 games on a PED suspension, would be a greater loss had Zito not acquired Jones. Rodrigues and Luostarinen, each of whom make $3 million a year, won’t even be restricted free agents for two more seasons.

The calendar is kind. Jones is 30. Barkov, Reinhart, Forsling, Ekblad and defenseman Niko Mikkola are 29. Bennett is 28 and Tkachuk 27.

In the postgame, Tkachuk revealed that his adductor muscle “had come off the bone” after an injury in the Four Nations Cup, and he had a hernia as well. Even in the surprising 5-game conquest of Tampa Bay in the first round, he wasn’t sure he could last four rounds. But he felt more comfortable with each game, and the Panthers dutifully followed. The Panthers were a prolific but fragile group before Zito dealt Jonathan Huberdeau and defenseman Mackenzie Weegar to the Flames three summers ago for Tkachuk, who had already said he wasn’t staying there. The Panthers have been to the Final every year since, and Tkachuk dragged everyone onto the frontlines, including Bennett, whom Calgary had already donated to Florida for Emil Heineman and a second-round pick.

Bennett had 13 of his 15 playoff goals on the road and, more important, knocked out Toronto goalie Anthony Stolarz with an elbow. He had waged, and won, a private war with Marchand in the ‘24 playoffs with Boston. Some sadists were primed to see Tkachuk, Bennett and Marchand on the same line after this year’s trade deadline, but Marchand immediately meshed with Luostarinen and Anton Lundell, who was the plus-minus leader in the whole playoffs.

With all that, it’s impossible to ignore the southern and southwestern trend of NHL playoff success. Five of the past six Cup champions have come from no-tax states (Tampa Bay ‘20 and ‘21, Vegas ‘22, Florida ‘24 and ‘25). The tax situation isn’t the only reason to play in such cities. The weather is nice, the front offices are committed, and it’s possible to live a player’s life without being recognized, over-analyzed or drawn and quartered on the Internet, even though the fan bases are loud and growing.

Bettman, churlish by nature, is particularly acid when asked about the taxes. He says nobody mentioned taxes when Tampa Bay and Florida were struggling. But Marchand, among others, says they’re definitely a factor. The basic tax rate in California is 7.25 percent. Let’s say Vegas signs a player for $10 million per year. The Kings would have to offer him $10.725 million to match that. That’s a $5.8 million difference over an eight-year contract. You can sign useful depth forwards and defensemen for $5.8 million.

But to adjust the salary cap to help the high-tax teams would mean the league would be catering to the Rangers, Bruins, Maple Leafs, Canadiens and several other rich franchises. Fat chance of that.

Years ago, the Kings’ Drew Doughty was asked if he would be particularly amped for a game against Toronto because former defense partner Jake Muzzin was now a Leaf. “Oh, I get up for every game,” Doughty protested. Then he paused. “Except, like, Florida, or one of those weird teams.”

The Panthers have methodically erased all the weirdness about playing a frozen game in alligator habitat. Theirs is a convergence of talent and tunnel vision that the league will have trouble solving, or dissolving.

“They really are a great bunch of people,” Maurice said last month. “They’re the type of people you’d love to have as neighbors. They’re very kind and nice to be around.”

He paused.

“Then the puck drops,” he said.