Through 30 years of Panthers history, the record books have some interesting memories attached to them
Through 30 years of Panthers history, the record books have some interesting memories attached to them
The Florida Panthers are one of the younger franchises in the NHL.
Next season will be the team's 30th in the league, but not until recently has the club enjoyed sustained, consistent success in the form of four straight postseason appearances.
It wasn't that long ago when just making the playoffs was a HUGE accomplishment for the Panthers.
The lack of success at the team level has been due in part to a lack of success at the individual level.
While perusing the all-time Panthers leaderboards for an assortment of statistics, there are some things that really jumped off the page at me.
It was a reminder of how checkered of a history, in terms of achievements and accomplishments, this team has, and how much the current state of the franchise should be appreciated.
It was also just a fun and unusual way of going through the team's history.
Here are a few of the stats that I found particularly interesting:
Pavel Bure is the franchise leader in points per game with 1.13. He had 251 points in 223 games in a Panthers sweater.
Ray Whitney is sixth on that list with 0.83 points per game, Mike Hoffman is fifth at 0.85 and there is a tie for ninth between Evgeni Dadonov and Jaromir Jagr at 0.72.
Keith Yandle is seventh in all-time assists with 201. Not bad for a guy who only played five seasons with the Panthers.
Sergei Bobrovsky has played the fourth-most games as a goaltender in team history, appearing in 185 since joining Florida.
Bill Lindsay's 609 penalty minutes are the fifth-most in team history. I'm sure you can guess who the top two are.
Hoffman is second all-time in goals per game at 0.43. He scored 65 goals in 151 games while playing for Florida.
Tomas Vokoun is the Panthers all-time leader in save percentage at .923 AND in goals against average at 2.57.
Mark Parrish is the all-time leader in shooting percentage. He scored 50 goals on 281 shots with the Panthers, a 17.8 percent success rate.
Second on that list is Sam Reinhart at 15.5 percent, and right behind him is Carter Verhaeghe at 15.3.
Bure had a whopping 10 hat tricks during his relatively brief time with the Panthers, twice as many as the next person on the list.
Interestingly enough, the player with the second-most hattys, Ray Sheppard, had five in just 190 games with Florida.
I'll end with Sasha Barkov, who is already at or near the top of the majority of Florida's all-time leaderboards.
He's the franchise leader in goals, points, game-winning goals, power play goals and plus/minus. He's second in games played, assists, shots on goal and points per game.
Barkov is also just 27 years old (he'll be 28 in September) and is signed through the year 2030.