Alan Greenberg, FHN Sr. Writer
It has often been said that the Stanley Cup is the most difficult trophy to capture in all sports.
As if the grind to the Stanley Cup was not grueling enough — there is a potential of playing 28 postseason games — the business side of hockey makes the accomplishment even more difficult.
Expansion has increased the number of contestants to 32; There were only six when I started to follow the game in another era.
Now, a hard salary cap and free agency are obstacles to the long-term growth of a team.
If a team is lucky, it may only get one or two shots at the Stanley Cup during a single era.
The Panthers finally won the Stanley Cup after losing in the 2023 Final.
Success in reaching the Final means players had outstanding seasons, and the team likely will not have the cap space to retain all its talent.
The Stanley Cup had been 31 years in the making for the Panthers, with one frustration after another before they achieved the elusive prize.
Given the team’s loss of talent, there may not be another season like the previous one for quite a few years.
As the new season approaches, let’s look back at the team’s lengthy path to the Stanley Cup.
I started covering the Panthers during the 2008-09 season.
The team was in transition at the time. Jacques Martin was forced out as coach to concentrate on general manager duties.
Martin made a wise decision to hire rookie NHL coach Pete DeBoer to run the team on the ice.
Up to that point, the Panthers’ top achievement was reaching the Stanley Cup Final in 1996, just three seasons in as an expansion team.
That was more of an aberration than the result of years of building. It was an unlikely accomplishment and a source of pride rather than frustration.
Although 2008-09 was not a very successful season, the Panthers had their moments and only missed the playoffs by a tiebreaker that was subsequently changed.
After the 2009-10 season in which Florida finished last in the Southeast Division, Dale Tallon came in with the expectation that he could do the same magic that he did in Chicago.
It never really completely came together.
Tallon was the general manager responsible for drafting Jonathan Huberdeau, Sasha Barkov, and Aaron Ekblad, but the team was not able to ice a consistent winner.
In 2012, the Panthers made the playoffs for the first time in 12 seasons, finishing first in the Southeast Division under first-year coach Kevin Dineen.
Scoring leaders were veterans brought in by Tallon.
The list included Tomas Fleischman, Kris Versteeg, Tomas Kopecky, and Brian Campbell.
Homegrown Stephen Weiss was a big part of the 2011-12 success.
David Booth had been traded away earlier in the year after never quite reaching the stardom predicted of him.
Frustration set in when the Panthers took a 3-2 lead in the opening round against New Jersey and then lost Games 6 and 7 in overtime.
The next three seasons were all mediocre, while Tallon brought in draft choices and veterans.
In 2013 Fleischmann led the team in scoring with 35 points in an abbreviated 48-game season.
The following season, Nick Bjugstad’s 38 points led the team. The Panthers finished 29th in the 30-team NHL with 66 points.
Some of the veteran acquisitions in those years turned out to be disastrous, such as Dave Bolland, a playoff hero in Chicago but injured and a total bust in Florida.
Veteran Scott Gomez had a short and uneventful stint in Florida.
The many other veterans to come and go included Marcel Goc, Brad Boyes, and fan favorite Ed Jovanovski, who returned to the Panthers in 2011 but left as a buyout in 2014 following a hard return from major hip surgery.
There was a goaltending carousel once Tomas Vokoun left as a free agent in 2011.
Florida employed a stream of veteran goaltenders who came and went — a group which included Jose Theodore, Tim Thomas, and Scott Clemmensen.
Goaltending did not stabilize until the Panthers reacquired Roberto Luongo at the 2014 trade deadline for young goalie Jacob Markstrom.
Peter Horachek was interim coach during 2013-14 after new owner Vinnie Viola was forced to make a change after a disastrous start even the well-liked Dineen could not survive.
With Luongo in net and Gerard Gallant as coach, the team improved by 25 points in the 2014-15 season and was back in the playoffs in 2015-16 with their first 100-point season.
Jaromir Jagr led the team in scoring.
Florida’s 103 points was good for first place in the Atlantic Division.
Frustration in the Panthers would quickly surface once again.
After losing to the Islanders in 6 — with three of the four losses in overtime — the Panthers made lots of changes and quickly went downhill.
The 2016-17 season was the ill-fated Tom Rowe ‘era’.
In a strange move, Rowe replaced Tallon as general manager , effectively kicking Tallon upstairs.
Rowe ultimately unceremoniously fired Gallant early in the season while the team was in Carolina and took over coaching duties in what became one of the most dysfunctional seasons in the team’s history.
By the next season, Rowe was gone, Tallon was back as GM, and Bob Boughner was the new coach.
In a controversial move, Tallon allowed forwards Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith to go to the expansion Vegas Golden Knights.
This was a major loss, but it allowed the free-agent signings of Evgenii Dadonov and Mike Hoffman.
While both provided offensive power, they had defensive lapses and were not enough to significantly improve the team.
In 2017-18, the Panthers missed the playoffs by a single point.
Barkov was named captain before the 2018-19 season.
Tallon made some key moves after the 2018-19 season, another non-playoff year as Viola made it clear it was time to start winning.
The Panthers fired Boughner in order to hire three-time Stanley Cup champion head coach Joel Quenneville.
Sergei Bobrovsky headlined a large and expensive group of free-agent signings.
Bobrovsky’s first few seasons caused a lot of second-guessing about the wisdom of bringing him in at a top-dollar contract.
In the Covid-abbreviated 2019-20 season, the Panthers were defeated by the Islanders in the qualifying playoff round.
Bill Zito replaced Tallon after the 2019-20 season.
In his first of many bold moves, he traded first-round pick Mike Matheson and Colton Sceviour to Pittsburgh for Patric Hornqvist.
This was the first big step in changing the team’s entire culture to enthusiasm and aggressive play.
Zito’s other acquisitions, at no sacrifice of manpower, included Carter Verhaeghe, Anthony Duclair, Gus Forsling, and Radko Gudas.
In 2021, the Panthers again made the playoffs and were eliminated in Round 1, this time by Cup-bound Tampa Bay.
Quenneville resigned the following season and was replaced by Andrew Brunette as interim coach.
Although the Panthers went on to win the Presidents’ Trophy in 2021-22, when Tampa Bay swept them in the second round, Zito decided it was time for drastic action.
Brunette was not offered the head coaching position. Long-time NHL coach Paul Maurice was brought in.
Zito traded franchise stalwart Huberdeau for Matthew Tkachuk.
Both Brunette’s and Huberdeau’s departures, along with MacKenzie Weegar’s, created controversy.
Along the way, Zito traded for Brandon Montour, Sam Bennett, and Sam Reinhart.
The deal that brought Reinhart from the Buffalo Sabres cost the Panthers their 2022 first-round pick, but that can now be considered a bargain.
The Montour and Bennett deals were cost-efficient, given the results.
While all the major pieces were assembled, Zito astutely put together a reasonably priced supporting cast.
The final pieces to the puzzle, which ultimately resulted in the Stanley Cup victory last season, included Kevin Stenlund, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Dmitry Kulikov, Anthony Stolarz, Evan Rodrigues, Vladimir Tarasenko, Niko Mikkola, and Kyle Okposo.
All were acquired with minimal loss of assets.
As expected, the Panthers lost talent after the victory.
One day after the parade, key ingredients to the team were gone because of cap issues: Montour was the biggest name to cash in on a once-in-a-lifetime payday opportunity, but lower-priced players such as the popular Ryan Lomberg were also able to get more than the Panthers were able to pay.
By Day 1 of free agency, Zito was already bringing in new talent.
How the new under-the-radar names will fare is anybody’s guess, but if history is an indicator the team will be right in the fight again.
It was a long and winding road to the Stanley Cup for the Florida Panthers.
They are undoubtedly enjoying the end result — as painful as the journey may have been.