Randy Moller and Billy Lindsay have been part of the Florida Panthers franchise longer than anyone still with the team

The Florida Panthers are reaching heights not seen by the long beleaguered franchise in decades.

An incredible run over the past six weeks has the Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1996.

In the many years between, there were more than a few seasons that were not easy to bear.

Playoff appearances became few and far between, and forget about postseason success.

The spoils granted to a brand new fanbase by the third-year team’s miraculous run to the Cup Final would be the one and only time the Panthers got past the first round.

Ten years passed. Then twenty.

Finally, a year after the silver anniversary of that amazing ’96 run, Carter Verhaeghe scored in Game 6 against Washington to send Florida to round two.

At long last, the barrier had been broken down.

Curse, or whatever you want to call it…lifted.

There are quite a few people who have lived and died with the Panthers since the beginning.

Original Panther Bill Lindsay is one of them.

Longest tenured Panthers employee, and former player, Randy Moller is another.

Moller joined the Panthers before the 1994-95 season for what turned out to be his final year as an NHL defenseman. He retired after that season, was hired to work on the team’s radio broadcast the following year and has been with the organization ever since.

“I’ve seen the ups and down, and more downs than ups, so this is really exciting,” Moller told THN on Saturday.

When Florida was celebrating its first trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 27 years, Moller was thinking about the fans.

Over the years, he has developed a special relationship with many of the Panthers’ longtime followers.

He knows several of Florida’s original season seat owners by name.

“I probably know 80% of the original season ticket holders,” Moller said, referring to the group as “the ‘93ers” to signify the year Florida broke into the league as an expansion team.

Whether it was while calling games from the radio booth (his movie line goal calls were legendary) or providing color commentary on the Panthers’ television broadcasts, Moller has had a front row seat to everything the franchise has gone through.

To see the team finally get over the hump, to make the playoffs four straight years and to build it into a run to the Stanley Cup Final, it’s been a special experience for Moller.

“The resiliency of this team that we've seen on a nightly basis, and how they win, and the way they win with these low scoring games, and the physicality, and to be able to manage the ups and downs of the adversities during games, and they've been down a lot of games and have had to come back, I've never seen anything like this before,” said Moller.

Lindsay was an original Florida Panthers player.

He was there for the inaugural game in Chicago in October of 1993 and actually committed the first penalty in franchise history that night.

Lindsay’s place in Panthers lore would forever be cemented during the team’s epic run to the Stanley Cup Final in 1996.

It was during Game 5 of the opening round when Lindsay scored an iconic goal, a diving, sprawling shot that lifted Florida to victory and advanced the upstart Panthers to round two.

The goal remains a signature moment in Panthers history, though its spot in the hierarchy has been challenged in recent weeks.

Lindsay hung up his skates following the 2006-07 season and returned to South Florida, taking a job as color analyst on the Panthers radio broadcast team.

“I got to come back and work for the team that I loved,” he told THN on Saturday. “That really helped me in retirement too, just to immediately stop playing and go right into broadcasting, because the transition…you're around the team, you're around hockey. Leaving hockey didn't even really faze me. You miss the game, but it was time for me to be done.”

Being back in a familiar place, around a team and players and employees that he knew and was close and comfortable with, it was a perfect scenario for Lindsay.

It’s also not very hard to see how he’s become so attached to the franchise, and why this run to the Final has meant so much to him.

“I’ve been here for so long, it’s my dream to see this team hoist that Cup,” he said. “To be so involved with this community for so long and do so many different things within and outside the organization, and become friends with so many people down here, and not only fans. South Florida has been my home for pretty much 30 years now.”

That’s why it felt fitting that when Florida hosted its first playoff game all the way back in the opening round, Game 3 against Boston, it was Lindsay beating the pregame drum to get the crowd fired up.

Last season, it was Lindsay’s voice on the playoff pregame hype video played inside FLA Live Arena.

He is as much an OG Panther as anyone.

It was also extremely fitting that not one, but two of the best celebration videos to make the rounds on social media are of none other than Lindsay himself.

Wednesday night, when Florida became Eastern Conference Champions, Lindsay was at the NHL Network studios in Secaucus, New Jersey, where he works as a studio analyst when he’s not calling Panthers games.

Cameras were rolling behind the scenes as Lindsay and his colleagues watched Game 4 between the Panthers and Hurricanes.

As the game appeared to be heading to yet another overtime, Lindsay stood up from the anchor desk and walked over to one of the monitors showing the game.

“That’s why I wasn’t sitting at the desk, because I was expecting the game to go to overtime and we weren’t going on the air until right after the game was over,” he explained.

The video tells the story.

When Matthew Tkachuk scored with 4.9 seconds left, giving Florida a 4-3 lead, Lindsay leapt. He screamed in delight, so happy that whatever he yelled didn’t sound like any word in the English dictionary.

Joyous nonsense?

“All that emotion came out and you’re just like ‘holy shit,’ we’re going to get a chance here again,” Lindsay said.

He circled the room, high fiving his co-hosts while trying to make sense of what he just saw happen.

“Then the producer says we’re up in a minute, so I scrambled back to the desk and put my jacked on and my head is swirling, it’s just crazy,” he recalled.

Moments later, the lights were bright, the cameras were hot, and Lindsay was on live TV.

The NHL Network began its postgame coverage and host Jamison Coyle immediately tossed to Lindsay to get his reaction.

That was the plan, for obvious reasons.

Lindsay knew before the highlight package would start to roll, he’d be giving his reaction to the game.

There were a thousand memories and faces and moments rushing through his mind.

Thirty years of history that, for much of, Lindsay had a front row seat, culminating in this ridiculous run by an eight-seed.

“All these thoughts are going through my head,” he said.

When Lindsay tried to find the words…well, watch for yourself.

“When the cameras came on and they turned to me, I just couldn’t speak,” he said. “I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. You feel all the emotions.”

In such a big moment for not only the Panthers franchise, but for its fans as well, Lindsay was the living embodiment of us all.

In the days since, Lindsay said he’s heard from several of his teammates from that marvelous run to the Stanley Cup Final in 1996.

Texts have been traded between Lindsay and Stu Barnes, Ed Jovanovski, Rob Neidermayer and current Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald, whose son Casey was claimed off waivers by Florida earlier this season.

“They’ve all been in touch to varying degrees,” Lindsay said. “They’re excited for the team, but for them, they've traveled different roads down their careers. For myself, it's just been here.”

That’s right.

Lindsay and Moller have made what could’ve been a brief stop on their hockey resumes into some of the most important and lasting memories of their respective careers.

Now they’re in it as deep as the most dedicated fans and the most tenured employees, aside from themselves, of course.

“It’s just so exciting for the franchise,” said Moller. “I think the biggest thrill is seeing the reaction of the fans and the comments and how proud and excited they are.”

“This is just on a different level,” added Lindsay. “Outside of playing, this is the one dream I have. This is it for me and for this organization.”