Soak it in: The Florida bleeping Panthers have won the Stanley Cup

David Dwork

Jun 25, 2024, 03:03

David Dwork

Jun 25, 2024, 03:03

The 2023-24 Stanley Cup Champions are the Florida Panthers

The Florida Panthers are Stanley Cup Champions.

Just let that sink in for a second.

The Florida Panthers…the FLORIDA bleeping PANTHERS…are Stanley Cup Champions.

Drink it in. Like a neat Johnny Blue, it’s going to go down smooth.

It’s been an amazing journey for this Panthers team, and it can be traced back to a few key moments.

The drafting of Sasha Barkov and Aaron Ekblad.

Vincent Viola purchasing the team.

The hiring of Bill Zito as General Manager in 2020.

The hiring of Paul Maurice in 2022.

Between the vision and commitment of Viola, the understanding the makeup of a winning team from Zito, the coaching style and demeanor or Maurice and the collective chemistry and dedication from each player that the aforementioned decision makers brought in…a bunch of things involving a lot of people had to go well for Florida to reach this point.

There may have been a few moments over the past 20 or so years where putting all that together seemed damn near impossible.

But here we are.

The name “Florida Panthers” will soon be engraved on the Stanley Cup.

Sasha Barkov.

Sergei Bobrovsky.

Ryan Lomberg.

For the first time ever, a guy named Evan.

All the players, coaches, management and staff will be immortalized with their names forever on the cup.

Right below where it says "Florida Panthers 2023-24."

Wow.

This is real, folks.

Enjoy it.