Over the first 29 years of their existence, the Florida Panthers failed to win the Stanley Cup a single time. But they made up for it in years 30 and 31, winning it in back-to-back seasons.
It took them six games to beat the Edmonton Oilers in the Final this year — a one-game improvement from their seven-game series against the same team last year. The final score in Game 6 was 5-1.
Sam Reinhart became the first player to score four goals in a Stanley Cup Final game since Maurice Richard did it in 1957. He did not, however, score the game-winner. That belongs to Matthew Tkachuk, the only other goal scorer for the Panthers on Tuesday.
In one of the most heart-warming moments of the season, Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov handed the Cup to Nate Schmidt, who had yet to win it. Schmidt handed it to fellow first-timer Seth Jones, who continued the trend, each guy passing it to the players that didn’t belong to the previous Cup-winning team — black aces included.
It was only after everyone got it that the star players took their victory laps.
Interesting notes from the 2025 Stanley Cup Final
Sam Bennett walked away with an additional piece of hardware as the first Panther to ever win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. As always, he elevated his game when the postseason rolled around. He led the playoffs in goals, in addition to being an emotional leader of the team. The timing is great for him, as he’s due for a new contract — and a significant raise — this summer.
Tkachuk revealed in a postgame interview that he’d torn the adductor off the bone and was dealing with a hernia on the same side of his body, which is likely what limited his playing time in the 4 Nations Face-Off gold medal game. But, as hockey players often do, he pushed through it.
“I wanted to throw in the towel a bunch of times,” he said. “I gotta thank a lot of people out here for getting me healthy enough. I’m sure I wasn’t the easiest to deal with.”
After losing a particularly frustrating game in Utah in late February, then-Chicago Blackhawk Seth Jones aired his grievances to the media, essentially saying that he wanted out of Chicago. They traded him to the Panthers a week later, and now he’ll be the first “Seth” to have his name engraved on the Stanley Cup.
Oh, and he won it against Oilers GM Stan Bowman, who, as the GM of the Blackhawks in 2021, acquired him and signed him to a long-term deal.
What went wrong for the Edmonton Oilers?
It seemed like a storybook opportunity for Connor McDavid and company to exorcise their demons, facing the same team in the Final that had beaten them the previous year. But it didn’t happen.
Although the series went to six games, it wasn’t as close as many had anticipated. Both Oilers wins came in overtime, and the Panthers led for 255 minutes and 49 seconds over the course of the series — the most in Stanley Cup Final history, according to NHL.com.
A lot of the weight will be placed on the shoulders of goaltender Stuart Skinner and defenseman Evan Bouchard, who were both at fault for far more goals against than they would have liked. But at the same time, the Oilers’ offense struggled to get much going at a lot of points throughout the series. The Oilers are famous for their ability to score in bunches, but with a few exceptions, they couldn’t do that in this series.
Give the Panthers their due credit, too. The Oilers waltzed through the Western Conference without much adversity, but for the second season in a row, the Panthers had the ability to shut them down. They’re a big, strong, physical team that plays a calm game — and that’s something the Oilers couldn’t compete with.
“We lost to a really good team,” McDavid said after the game. “Nobody quit, nobody threw the towel in. They’re a heck of a team. They’re back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a reason.”
What’s next on the NHL schedule?
It’s not time to turn your focus to other sports quite yet. The NHL Draft takes place on June 27-28, followed by free agency signing day on July 1.
Teams will then kick off their respective development camps in early July.