Florida is a Hockey State as Panthers Return to the Stanley Cup Final

When you think of Florida, you don’t think of hockey. The first thing that comes to mind is football, whether it is the Miami Hurricanes or the Miami Dolphins. You might even put the Jacksonville Jaguars up there and the Florida State Seminoles. However, Florida is a hockey state thanks to the Panthers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.

For the fifth straight season, a team from Florida will be in the Stanley Cup Final. Tampa Bay made three consecutive trips to the Final from 2020-2022. The Florida Panthers picked up where they left off, making two straight trips to the Stanley Cup Final in 2023 and again in 2024. These teams have put Florida on the map as a hockey state.

“Hockey in Florida has grown so much because of these two teams and the success, and I think there’s just a different vibe down here in how the teams are run and how hockey’s played, and it’s just a different situation,” Diandra Loux of the Hockey News told Full Press Hockey. 

And think of how hockey has grown in Florida since the Lightning and Panthers entered the league in the early 1990s. The Panthers and Lightning entered around the same time. Florida entered during the 1993-94 season, with Tampa Bay entering in the 1992-93 season.

It was a long road for these teams to get where they are today. Both teams had their expansion struggles, but the Panthers were the first team from Florida to make a run to the 1996 Stanley Cup Final successfully. They lost to the Colorado Avalanche in four games, but the rats were born that year.

After that, Florida returned to the playoffs in 1997 before losing to the New York Rangers in five games. The Panthers saw struggles from 1998 through 2010, making the playoffs once losing to the New Jersey Devils in the first round in four games in 2000.

But while the Panthers struggled, the Lightning took off as they won the Stanley Cup in 2004 behind Vincent Lecaivilier and Martin St. Louis. Though the Lightning saw a rocky road as well, they did fall into Steven Stamkos, Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat, Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, Victor Hedman, and Andrei Vasilevskiy, not to mention trading for Mikhail Sergachev.

The Lightning were the team that put Florida Hockey on the map. They went to a Stanley Cup Final in 2015 and had their struggles before winning back-to-back Stanley Cups in 2020 and 2021 and making a third trip in 2022. They are poised to return to glory, but more on that later.

Meanwhile, the Panthers found success once Dale Tallon and Bill Zito came into play in the hockey operations department. While the team lost to the Devils again in the 2012 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Florida was building a winner. Drafting Aleksander Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau (now in Calgary), and Aaron Ekblad built a foundation for what we see with the Panthers today.

Though the Panthers felt they were a better team, they could not advance past the first round, losing to the New York Islanders twice and the Tampa Bay Lightning. After beating the Washington Capitals in the first round in 2022, the Panthers, who were the Presidents Trophy winners, fell again to the Lightning, and this was the beginning of the rivalry that put hockey on the map in Florida.

Zito made changes, bringing in players like Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Bennett, Matthew Tkachuk, and Brandon Montour, not to mention the others who have shaped this team, including goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky. Florida got meaner and nasty, similar to the Lightning before them, and it showed on the ice.

Even with their struggles last year under new head coach Paul Maurice, the Panthers made a trip to the Stanley Cup Final. But again, Florida had to experience the growing pains. This year, they beat the Lightning convincingly in the first round en route to the Stanley Cup Final.

Fans in Florida wanted this rivalry to be competitive. The games were always competitive in the regular season but not in the playoffs. The Florida Panthers were the step-sister to the Tampa Bay Lightning until now.

“I know Lightning fans aren’t happy that the Panthers are seeing success, but I think it’s always good for hockey in Florida when one of these two teams is there at the end,” Loux continued to tell Full Press Hockey.

The Sunshine State of Florida continues to be put on the map thanks to what these two teams do. The goal of the Florida Panthers is to do what the Lightning did and lift the Stanley Cup.