The Florida Panthers came up short in the Stanley Cup Final and lost the trophy to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday to put an end to their Cinderella run.
They are not just another eighth seed that got hot at the right time, though. With a superstar in place and cap room going into the offseason, Florida is built to succeed. Hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli discussed the future of the Panthers on Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff Live.
Tyler Yaremchuk: It was heartbreaking hearing Paul Maurice run down the list of injuries Matthew Tkachuk and Aaron Ekblad played through this postseason, but the future is bright in Florida. Is this Panthers team built for further success?
Frank Seravalli: They have put the Florida Panthers on the map. One of the most anonymous franchises of pro sports has now become a destination, I think. It was always an unreal place to live and play hockey thanks to Florida’s tax code, but, by the way, the team is really good now.
Part of that is from having had someone like Matt Tkachuk, a franchise player that they can continue to build around, choose the Florida Panthers. It is unbelievable that he played in Game 4 with a car crash type of injury, a fractured sternum, and even needed help putting his equipment on. He knew he couldn’t do that again for Game 5, and you mentioned Ekblad’s injuries dating back to the Boston series.
The amazing thing about where the Panthers are, Tyler, is that they were not building for this year. This season was just a roll of the dice where they wanted to get in as a seventh or eighth seed. They had dead cap space that they were dealing with and some tough contracts to wade through including that of Patrick Hornqvist. This is a team that made its last trade in December and really did nothing significant all season long because they were not sure they could compete.
Florida only made the playoffs because of Pittsburgh’s loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, and then they went on this magical run. Sergei Bobrovsky came alive, and for the core pieces around this team to know that they have Matthew Tkachuk is significant for this franchise moving forward. They figured they would get their guy and worry about everything else later. No one saw this run coming.
Down in the third period in Game 7 against the Boston Bruins, the flawless record that they had in overtime the entire playoff run, it was all magic. It wore off in the Final, and the injuries caught up to them, but with the way that this team is built and the cap space they have moving forward, Florida is going to become a go-to destination in the NHL.
You can watch the entire episode here:
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