Seth Jones Becomes a Champ with the Panthers After Blackhawks Trade

FORT LAUDERDALE — Seth Jones was the first Florida Panthers player to receive his Stanley Cup championship ring box on Monday night, meaning he was the player who had to sit there staring at it the longest before everyone got to open them up at the same time.

Which seemed almost fitting.

Jones had been working on becoming a Stanley Cup champion his whole life, his NHL road starting in 2013 when the Panthers bypassed him at the draft when they took Sasha Barkov with the No. 2 overall pick.

Nashville ended up taking Jones with the fourth selection, and until he was traded to the Panthers from the Chicago Blackhawks back in March, the closest he had ever come to Stanley Cup glory was a second round appearance with the Blue Jackets in 2019.

Later today, Jones will be on the ice with the rest of his Panthers teammates when they unfurl their 2025 Stanley Cup championship banner and raise it to the rafters of Amerant Bank Arena.

The Blackhawks, a team he signed an eight-year deal with in 2021 after a trade from Columbus, will be on the other side of the ice.

“It’s going to be an exciting time not just for us, but for the organization in raising that banner and trying to get a win,’’ Jones said Monday morning. “It should be pretty cool. I think it’ll be up there forever. This is a pretty special group and while it’s a celebration, it’s a turning of a page. It’s a new chapter.”

Jones’ time in Chicago did not go the way he nor anyone had hoped.

The draft day trade in 2021 was supposed to usher in a renaissance for the Blackhawks, but things went south in a hurry.

By last season, Jones seemingly had enough of the losing and wanted out.

The Panthers pounced, traded Spencer Knight and a first-round pick to Chicago, and got a much-needed piece on their back end.

Although he got off to a little bit of a slow start with the Panthers as he figured things out with his new team and was pushed into replacing a suspended Aaron Ekblad, Jones’ play during the playoffs was inspired and proved the Panthers made the right move in swinging for the fences.

Again.

“He took off in the playoffs,” Paul Maurice said.

Today will be the first time Knight faces his old team and, the first time Jones meets up with the Blackhawks since the trade.

“I put almost four years in Chicago, made a lot of great friends, some good memories,’’ Jones said. “A lot of great people work in that organization, so, will see some old faces on the ice. But it’s going to be competitive out there.’’

Nick Foligno, Jones’ captain in both Columbus and Chicago, seemed to have some harsh words for the way things played out at the trade deadline.

“There’s a cohesiveness with the group,’’ Foligno told Ben Pope of the Chicago Sun-Times after a March 12 win. “We’ve gotten rid of some distractions, so to speak, and now there’s a group that’s trying to get better… Sometimes when you make hard decisions, they end up benefiting the group, and you’re seeing that.”

Monday, Foligno reiterated that the two remain close and he was happy to see Jones win it all with the Panthers.

“It wasn’t an easy situation,” Foligno said. “Seth Jones is a really good friend of mine. As his friend, it was just trying to make sure he understood that, if this was the end, you kind of have to have your heart in whatever you do. As a friend, it was hard to see him not enjoying the game like he used to. So I am really happy he seems to have found that joy again. It sucks it’s not here, but at the end of the day, he deserves to play hockey and be happy where he is at. I think he has found that. And I couldn’t be more thrilled for him as a friend.”

Jones obviously heard those March comments and said he was “taken aback” by them.

“At the same time … maybe I said some things that maybe came out wrong. I never meant any disrespect to that organization or the players there,’’ Jones said. “We were trying our hardest every night. We were trying to win hockey games, and guys are laying their body on the line and doing everything for their careers.”

As far as joining the Panthers go, well, everything worked out.

The Blackhawks got a good, young goalie in Knight — and Jones found a new home.

And some pretty nice hardware.

“Winning the Stanley Cup, for sure, is a best-case scenario,” Jones said. “It didn’t matter if it was Florida or somewhere else. I’m happy I’m here, it’s a great team. Great guys off the ice. I felt like I was here forever when I got here.”

ON DECK: OPENING NIGHT

CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS at FLORIDA PANTHERS 

• When: Tuesday, 5 p.m.
• Where: Amerant Bank Arena, Sunrise
• National TV: ESPN
• Streaming: ESPN+/Hulu
• Radio: WQAM 560-AM/104.3 FM; 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: Tied 1-1
• This Season — At Florida: Tuesday; At Chicago: Jan. 25
• All-time Regular Season Series: Blackhawks lead 30-20-4, 3 ties
• Up Next for the Panthers: Thursday vs. Philadelphia Flyers, 7 p.m. (Local TV)