Panthers' First Stanley Cup Came After Rocky Road That Included Many Disappointments

The symbolism seems pretty obvious, but even as the Florida Panthers gloriously flitted around the ice of Amerant Bank Arena in the wake of the franchise’s first Stanley Cup, they weren’t giving up the secret of one of their motivators.

You see, on the back of the tactical performance-wear shirts that the players wore under their jerseys, there was a rather pronounced image of the goalie mask worn by the iconic horror-flick villain Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies. For a team that had fallen short of the championship last year, losing in the Cup final to Vegas in five punishing games that broke several bodies, the Panthers were clearly looking to make sure they were on the right side of the celebration this time. And while the public-facing theme of their charge through the playoffs was “Redemption,” it doesn’t take a detective to surmise that, privately, the Panthers and their slasher-film totem had another word in mind: Revenge.

But on the ice, after a 2-1 Game 7 victory that frayed nerves across the hockey world, the Panthers were all about joy – and not so much about Jason.

That joy comes easily when you reach the ultimate goal together, and Florida certainly was a team. Heck, the Panthers didn’t even have the Conn Smythe Trophy winner on their side. The playoff MVP award rightfully went to Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, who was an absolute demon for the Oilers and a big reason they gave the Panthers such a scare in coming back from a 3-0 series deficit to force a Game 7 in the first place. But McDavid didn’t score in the final showdown (wait, was he Jason?), and, as always, it took a team effort to get it done. Florida managed to shut down the Oilers captain for important stretches of the series, with center Aleksander Barkov getting the main assignment up front and goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky – a Conn Smythe contender himself until he got flayed in the middle of the series – providing the last line of defense.

And while defenseman Gustav Forsling rightly got his roses from the hockey world for his post-season play, let’s not forget it was his big partner, Aaron Ekblad, who often stared down McDavid in the defensive zone, doing his best to keep the most dangerous offensive force in the sport at bay as much as possible.

The story of Ekblad is very much the story of the modern-day Panthers. Drafted first overall by Florida in 2014, the big blueliner joined the franchise around the same time owner Vincent Viola was taking control, ushering in a new era of accountability and culture that drew off Viola’s military background. The current team logo, introduced in 2016, was inspired by Viola’s army division, the 101st Airborne.

Prior to 2014, the Panthers had only advanced to the post-season four times in their 20-year history, making a surprise run to the 1996 final as a third-year expansion team (they finished third in their division that year) but otherwise never making it past the first round. For a while, agents didn’t want their players to be drafted by the organization, as Florida churned through coaches and failed to capture the imagination of anyone outside the diehards in the fan base.

But there was time for Ekblad to grow as an NHLer. Thanks to his size and skill, he was the second player granted exceptional status to join the OHL a year early (John Tavares was the first), and by his third season with the Barrie Colts, he was nearly a point-per-gamer from the blueline. Ekblad made Canada’s World Junior Championship squad as a 17-year-old, where his imposing frame inspired his teammates to nickname him ‘Shrek.’

One year later, he was in the NHL with the Panthers, getting the full learning experience thanks to a team veteran. “I got to live with Willie Mitchell, which was awesome for me,” Ekblad said. “He was a two-time Stanley Cup champion, and his wife was an amazing cook who went to culinary school. I got to live and grow with him, learn a lot about the league and being a player and a person in the community. It was a great opportunity.”

Even with Barkov (drafted second overall in 2013, one year before Ekblad) and Ekblad as the new cornerstones, the Panthers failed to gain traction in those early years. Sure, there was the Atlantic Division win under Gerard Gallant in 2015-16, but that ended with a first-round playoff loss to the wild-card New York Islanders. Less than a season later, Gallant was out on the curb – literally, as he famously took a taxi instead of waiting for the car service the team had called for him after he was fired in the wake of a loss to Carolina. At the time, it was another punchline for the hockey world to use to rip on the franchise.

Ekblad had five coaches in his first eight years with the Panthers before Paul Maurice took over last season. That hiring – along with masterful GM Bill Zito, who was brought in in 2020 – changed the organization forever. “It’s been a huge culture change,” Ekblad said. “From a run of multiple coaches and GMs to now having a solid base where things aren’t changing all the time is very good for the organization. There’s a culture built here that starts with ownership and runs through Bill, the coaches and players, that we hold each other to a higher standard.”

That higher standard got Maurice his job in the first place. Previous coach Andrew Brunette led the team to the 2021-22 Presidents’ Trophy with a high-octane offense, but Florida still faltered in the playoffs, losing in the second round to archrival Tampa Bay. Not only was Brunette jettisoned, but Zito then pulled off one of the greatest trades in recent history, acquiring Matthew Tkachuk from Calgary, with Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar the major names going to the Flames. Keep in mind, Huberdeau had just established an NHL record for left wingers with 85 assists, while piling up 115 points. All of a sudden, the Panthers went from offensive flyboys to defensive monsters.

In Maurice’s first year behind the bench, the Cats went to the Cup final, burying their Eastern opponents along the way. A record-breaking Boston Bruins team shockingly fell in seven to Florida in the first round, while teams from Toronto and Carolina couldn’t (or wouldn’t) go to the middle of the ice and got snuffed out in short order by the sturdy Panthers.

But the Vegas Golden Knights were another animal, and the fast, heavy outfit had no problem stomping through the Florida zone, making netminder Bobrovsky look mortal in the process. “Last year, we had a lot of confidence, but we ran out of gas,” said left winger Carter Verhaeghe. “For a lot of guys, it was their first time going that far, and we were still learning.”

It didn’t help that Tkachuk had his sternum broken mid-series on a hit by Keegan Kolesar and that the Cats were all-around banged up. The Knights won in a decisive five-game romp. “It’s not a feeling you want to feel,” Ekblad said. “We learned a lot from last year, but it’s a terrible feeling. There’s no way to sugarcoat that.”

Ekblad was also hobbled in that final series. He had broken his foot in the first round against Boston, then racked up two shoulder separations and a torn oblique muscle after that. The shoulder problem needed off-season surgery. “During the break (between the conference final and Cup final last year), it was all downhill,” Ekblad said. “When you’re in it, you just keep doing it, but the break made it worse. It wasn’t a fun time. It was stressful, and I was trying to find a way to get healthy for that series, but I couldn’t.”

But for this playoff run, Ekblad was much healthier. He and defense partner Forsling were absolute lockdown machines throughout the entire run, shutting down Nikita Kucherov in Tampa Bay, David Pastrnak with Boston, and a host of high-end Rangers against New York. Against Edmonton, they faced down the likes of McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and gave no quarter.

In the first two games, Edmonton’s only goal came from defenseman Mattias Ekholm, and none of McDavid, Draisaitl, Zach Hyman or Ryan Nugent-Hopkins had a goal in any of the first three Florida wins. Sure, the floodgates opened in that bizarre Game 4 loss that saw Edmonton run up an 8-1 walloping, but, ultimately, those first three games showed what a defensive powerhouse Florida had become.

Forsling may have been Zito’s best move outside of the Tkachuk trade. He was picked up off waivers from Carolina after previously failing to secure a regular spot in Chicago.

Former Panthers coach Joel Quenneville had liked what he had seen from Forsling at one training camp in Chicago when Quenneville was the Blackhawks coach, so the Panthers took a flier on the blueliner. With Florida, Forsling has been indispensable at both ends of the ice. For a 28-year-old who struggled for years to establish himself in the NHL, it’s all incredibly impressive. “He’s got the mental toughness, but ask him to take his shirt off and you’ll understand why he can play so many games,” Ekblad said. “He’s a specimen, and I think one of the few games he missed this year was because of the birth of his son. He’s a warrior. He’s committed to preparation, and that is why he’s so durable.”

He’s also a fan of his partner, Ekblad. “Very easy to play with,” Forsling said. “He’s very smart, he reads the game very well, and he’s got the experience. He’s been there, done that. He’s got great poise with the puck, and he’s very calm out there. He reads the play very well, and we play well together. We’re very good friends, too, so it’s been unreal.”

And while Forsling has been praised for his mental approach to the game, he sees that strength in Ekblad, too. “He’s just a pro,” Forsling said. “He comes to the rink and it’s a new day. That’s how you have to handle it, especially in the playoffs. You’re going to have bad games or a game you’re not happy with, but the next day, you come ready.”

That notion came into focus last year at Amerant Bank Arena when pro golfer and Panthers fan Brooks Koepka strangely began yelling at Ekblad during an eventual loss to the Rangers while brandishing a pylon, a not-too-subtle prop to support his protestations. But Ekblad let the incident roll off his back, and Koepka soon made up with the team, even banging the pre-game drum during the Cup final against Vegas. So, no, you’re not going to rattle Forsling or Ekblad out there.

The result has been a pairing that just doesn’t give opposing forwards anything. With their combination of skating, size, smarts and reach, Forsling and Ekblad were keeping the NHL’s top stars at bay and making it look fairly easy. Respecting dangerous players such as McDavid is part of the recipe. “You have to read the play well and understand he’s dynamic and has a lot of options,” Ekblad said. “And you have to move your feet. Being a big guy, I’m never going to be as fast as McDavid or turn on a dime like he does, so it’s all about angles and limiting time and space. He’s one of those generational, all-time players.”

And when in doubt, just use your bulk and your strength to pin the puck against the boards and let the clock drain out on your opponent. That’s what Ekblad did to seal a Game 3 victory over Edmonton, with Maurice calling that board play one of the more underrated skills in the league.

But the effectiveness of his pairing with Forsling is about a working relationship, and that’s something Ekblad has benefitted from numerous times in his career. “I’ve always had the luxury of playing hundreds of games with the partners I’ve had,” he said. “To play that many games together, we have agreements in certain areas that we’re going to do things a particular way, and we work well off each other.

“I learned a lot from guys like Willie Mitchell, Brian Campbell and MacKenzie Weegar. It’s important to talk and have a general idea of where that guy is going to be. With forwards, they seem to find chemistry quickly, and that sort of lottery-ball aspect of being a forward would be tough for me. I love playing with ‘Forsy.’ ”

There, of course, has been an evolution with Ekblad over the years. As a rookie, he came in with a lot of hype and earned the Calder Trophy in 2014-15, playing nearly 22 minutes a night and putting up a respectable 39 points, which was second-best among rookie D-men to Dallas’ John Klingberg (keep in mind, Jamie Benn won the NHL scoring title that year with 87 points).

It was a competitive year for the award, but the 18-year-old Ekblad got nearly as many first-place votes as the next two finalists – Mark Stone and Johnny Gaudreau – combined. While Ekblad’s best offensive season came with Brunette’s firewagon Cats two years ago (57 points in 61 games), the now-veteran blueliner is perfectly happy with playing more of a shutdown role these days. “It’s a completely different game, where the NHL has evolved in a way where I’ve had to evolve,” Ekblad said. “My game isn’t as offensive anymore. It’s predicated more on gaps and being defensive and breaking pucks out cleanly. Those are the ways I impact the game more now.”

For his coach, that evolution has been impressive. “Take a look at the maturation of his game,” said Maurice. “Sometimes, you find a different way. He’s a power-play guy who puts up big numbers on a high-scoring team, and then, in some ways, he has to accept a change. And it wasn’t a problem for him. He came off the top on the power play and went to the flank. Then, he came off the flank. He broke his foot, separated his shoulder twice and had the oblique tear, and he played through it.

“In order to play the game when he was so broken and beat up, he had to play this grinding, bang-it-out, defending style. He also lost MacKenzie Weegar, who had that offensive game. Now, he’s playing with Gus Forsling, and we’re running them out against the other team’s best. And then it turns out he’s really, really good at that. He truly embraced it. He made a major change in his career, and he owns it.”

When Maurice came in, the changes were obvious. But faith in a coach who had accomplished so much in his career put the Panthers on the right road. “From Day 1, that was the idea he had,” Ekblad said. “It took some time to buy in and get everyone on track to run that well-oiled machine it needs to be for success, but obviously, we’ve had success, and I’m happy to play for him.”

There’s also the physical aspect of the game that comes in handy. Ekblad went a little viral at the beginning of the Cup final when he appeared to have Edmonton defenseman Evan Bouchard in a chokehold (Bouchard even clearly “tapped out” at one point), and opponents know not to mess with the big bear.

“I loved playing against him,” said teammate and former Buffalo Sabres captain Kyle Okposo. “We went at it pretty good. We met five years ago at (skills coach) Darryl Belfry’s camp in Florida, and after that, you’re still playing hard against each other, but you might not try to slash each other in the face anymore. He’s so long and such a smart player that he’s very difficult to get inside of. You don’t always notice him, but often those are the best defensemen because they don’t make mistakes. They keep the play moving, and they’re not flashy. They just do the right things.”

This is an excerpt from Ryan Kennedy's cover story on the Florida Panthers' Stanley Cup win, which appeared in THN's 2024 Champions edition.

In this video, Adam Proteau discusses the Panthers' long road to the Cup:

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