Dave Hyde: A memorable season (and a fourth line against
Paul Maurice’s final decision of an unforgettable season that lasts permanently now should not be lost amidst the champagne and stogie smoke. Due to the fact that the choice was as remarkable as this rare run. The Florida Panthers coach stood behind the bench and hoarsely contacted us to his 4th line as the sound started uncork in Amerant Bank Arena during the choosing Game 6.
“I’m going to get you out there,” he stated. “I desire you 3 f– ing guys on the ice for the last shift … Since we’re down 2-0 against Toronto and you f– ers got us here.”
The point isn’t simply Maurice was saluting how this was a total team, even an all-star team, by keeping his stars on the bench and sending career grunts like Tomas Nosek, A.J. Greer and Johan Gadjovich on the ice to begin the Stanley Cup event as time ticked down on June 17 in Sunrise.
The point is to appreciate is how valuable winning a title is, how fickle and random all of it can seem when you think back to that night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s why this second Stanley Cup need to be held securely and commemorated endlessly.
Winning a title is unusual. But two straight? Yes, loudly take that Stanley Cup to the beach again, into the bars again, to the neighbor’s house at 5 a.m. once again and all down a parade that in some way topped in 2015’s parade.
Maurice understands. He’s a hockey lifer, an old-school tough guy underneath the excellent match and better jokes. He spent 29 years training the opposite, the losing side, the one that always gets a bad bounce or suffers unfortunate injury or, in this case, got a fourth-line that started banging Toronto non-stop while down 2-0 in the second-round series and two objectives in Video game 3.
“They got us back to our game, to our identity,” Maurice said. “That’s something not to forget.”
Maurice presented a phrase for such specifying moment in a game. “An inflection point,” he called it. The Panthers found their method versus Toronto, rallied to send that game into overtime and won when Brad Marchand scored on a breakaway in his first specifying Panthers moment.
All of a sudden, the Panthers were back in the series, trailing 2 games to one. Suddenly, they re-found the disciplined game they rode the rest of the method with a dozen more great inflection points.
“It can be that close, this game,” Maurice said.
Ask Marchand. He was on the other end of a Panthers inflection point two years earlier. Another overtime breakaway. He could’ve won the first-round series for the Boston Bruins with a goal. These Panthers might then have never become who they are if they go into that offseason right there.
Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky stopped Marchand right there, the Panthers rallied from down 3 games to beat Boston and they have actually been on their merry way that’s just grown merrier since. They lost in the last that season. There then was no better team in hockey than the Panthers the following year, their very first championship season of 2023-24.
However this year’s group was substantially better. It wasn’t even close, actually.
“We’re deeper, more confident,” forward Matthew Tkachuk stated. “Winning it when, we knew what it takes. So we’re better that way. Then to include skill like (Marchand and Seth Jones) like we did, that’s not something that occurs too often.”
That night the fourth-line conserved the Panthers was as close as it got this spring. Think of it. The Panthers beat a difficult Tampa Bay Lightning in 5 games and won three of the final 4 against Toronto, the only series that went seven games.
The Carolina Hurricanes waited two years for this Eastern Conference final rematch and went down in five games.
The Edmonton Oilers likewise waited a year for this Cup Final rematch. It seemed close, even historical, after four games– three of which were chosen in overtime. It was being called a traditionally fantastic last at that point. However take a look at it now, in retrospection. Edmonton won two overtime games. The Panthers won an overtime game and the other 3 games by a 16-4 margin.
There’s a clip from Maurice in another series shouting from behind the bench, “Use them down so they have nothing left in Game 7.” The Panthers didn’t need a Game 7 against Edmonton again this year. They led the playoffs with the most goals per game and least objectives quit per game. That’s informs you how dominant the Panthers were this 2nd time around.
Maurice waited almost three years as an NHL coach for his first championship.
He waited less than 12 months for a second.
“There’s a different feeling to it,” he stated of the 2nd Cup. “In 2015 was a dream. It was a dream come to life. It was blissful. This one was an accomplishment. It was hard. It was hard all year. It was hard at camp. It never got easy.
“There were numerous locations if we had actually broken at that point, or stopped working, we would’ve understood. ‘We did our finest, we couldn’t get it done.’ We never ever let that happen.”
That, and a great fourth-line stand against Toronto, was the distinction between questioning what occurred and cherishing what did occur in such a way that will go on permanently.
Originally Published: June 24, 2025 at 8:30 AM EDT