Florida Panthers Relive Stanley Cup Glory, Then Turn the Page

SUNRISE — The Florida Panthers have expressed their desire to not live too far in the past, to “turn the page” on their past Stanley Cup success and move on to the next challenge.

Over the past two nights, the Panthers have been able to relive their 2025 Stanley Cup glory first with the championship ring ceremony on Monday night, then Tuesday’s banner unveiling at the season opener in Sunrise.

There will be plenty of time for moving on.

Days like these simply do not come around all that often — even though it may seem like commonplace now for these Panthers.

“It was a really nice 24 hours for us because we don’t talk about it much,’’ Paul Maurice said after the Panthers opened the season with a 3-2 win over the Blackhawks.

“You win it, you have the parade and everybody leaves town. It’s gone, and then you come back at training camp, it hits you. So, the last 24 hours we got to relive it a little bit. It was very nice.”

The Panthers got back to business after a quick, businesslike ceremony.

Aaron Ekblad filled in for injured captain Sasha Barkov and brought the Stanley Cup out onto the ice and the banner quickly went up.

The Florida players stood facing it, arms interlocked as music played and fans cheered.

“An emotional moment for sure,’’ Ekblad said. “That’s obviously Barky’s spot, I was just filling in. But, it feels incredible to come out in front of our fans and be able to hoist it one more time. But, we’re trying to put that feeling behind us and move on to this year.”

Yes, it was time to get back to work.

Even the Stanley Cup had moved on, tweeting “I’m back on the market.’’

I'm back on the market.

— The Stanley Cup (@StanleyCup) October 7, 2025

The Panthers dominated the Blackhawks in the first period but found themselves on the wrong end of a 1-0 score after allowing 21-year-old Frank Nazar to break free and walk in on Sergei Bobrovsky midway through the period.

A.J. Greer got Florida’s first goal of the season soon after, Carter Verhaeghe making it 2-1 with a really nice power play goal in front of the net.

But thanks to an outstanding performance from Spencer Knight, that was it for Florida until Jesper Boqvist broke the 2-2 tie by bunting in a sharp pass to the slot from Mackie Samoskevich.

It was a slogfest of a game, where credit can go to Knight for a lot of that.

But there may be plenty more of those to come.

Without Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, Florida is going to have to rely on its third and fourth lines a little more.

Tuesday night, they were up to the challenge.

“That’s why our team is so good. We rely on everybody,’’ Brad Marchand said. “Mackie has been unbelievable from the second he came to camp. It’s great to see that we can continue to rely on our depth throughout the entire year and that’s how I view success.”

ON DECK: GAME NO. 2

PHILADELPHIA FLYERS at FLORIDA PANTHERS 

• When: Thursday, 7 p.m.
• Where: Amerant Bank Arena, Sunrise
• Local TV: Scripps Sports — WSFL 39 (Miami/FTL); WPTV 5/WHDT 9 (WPB); LAFF 36.3 (SWFla)
• Streaming: Panthers+; ESPN+
• Radio: WQAM 560-AM; WBZT 1230-AM (West Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); WCZR 101.7-FM (Treasure Coast); SiriusXM
• Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932, NHL/Panthers App
• Last Season: Florida won 2-1
• This Season — At Florida: Thursday, Nov. 26; At Philadelphia: Oct 13.
• All-time Regular Season Series: Philadelphia leads 60-39-7, 7 ties
• Up Next for the Panthers: Saturday vs. Ottawa Senators, 7 p.m. (Local TV)