The Panthers’ underdog story is still alive in the Stanley Cup Final. ‘It’s a movie’
At this point, it’s a little bit a joke to Nick Cousins: Any time Matthew Tkachuk speaks in public, inevitably he’ll hit on his one big talking point about the Florida Panthers.
They got into the 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs by one point in the last week of the regular season, had to play the record-setting Bruins in the first round and then played the new Stanley Cup-favorite Maple Leafs in the second after they pulled off their upset in Boston.
The Panthers, the superstar right wing wants everyone to remember, are underdogs. They’re not supposed to be here in the 2023 Stanley Cup Final.
“I think he said that like 25 times,” Cousins said, laughing. “We just kind of roll with it.”
Even seven weeks and three upsets after it started the Stanley Cup playoffs as the second wild card in the Eastern Conference, Florida is still an underdog in the Stanley Cup Final.
The Vegas Golden Knights finished atop the Western Conference. The Panthers had the worst regular-season record of anyone in the Cup playoffs. Although the sports books surrounding T-Mobile Arena believe in Florida now more than they did in April, the oddsmakers still favor the Golden Knights, who finished the regular season tied for fourth in the NHL in points and began the playoffs as one of the Stanley Cup favorites.
The Panthers wouldn’t want it any other way.
“It’s a movie,” left wing Ryan Lomberg said.
There was struggle, sitting nine points out of a playoff spot after Christmas, and they overcame it to dramatically sneak into the postseason with just one game to spare.
There was growth, finally clicking with first-year coach Paul Maurice’s style in the last few months, and it let them rally past the Bruins in the first round despite dropping 3 of 4 to start the playoffs.
Now, there’s a chance to make history. Florida can become only the second No. 8 team to ever win the Cup and the first to win a championship by beating four 50-win teams.
Game 1 of the Cup Final is Saturday at 8 p.m. in Las Vegas.
“You look at the numbers,” Lomberg said. “That seems like an underdog story to me.”
At the same time, the Panthers haven’t looked like an underdog at any point since the early stages of the opening round, even though they weren’t actually favored in a single playoff game in until Game 3 of the East finals.
Florida beat Toronto in five games and swept the Hurricanes out of the ECF. The Panthers have won 11 of 12, dating back to their three-game winning streak shock Boston, and seven straight away from South Florida. Star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky is flirting with the best postseason in NHL history — his 19.7 goals saved above expected are the third most in a single playoff run since at least the 2009 Stanley Cup playoffs, which is as far back as MoneyPuck.com tracks — and Tkachuk is on such a run he was profiled by People on Friday.
At the same time, Tkachuk still stuck to the same underdog narrative a few hours later.
“A lot of talk’s been made about us and our path, and the eight seed and limping in, which is completely understandable,” the All-Star winger said. “This isn’t a drop-off by any means with this team. They ran through the West in the regular season as a one seed, they’ve run through the playoffs very easy when you look at it and look at everything they’ve done.”
He is right about the Golden Knights, too. Vegas hasn’t needed a Game 7 yet in these playoffs, beating the Jets in five games in Round 1, the Oilers in six in Round 2 and finally the Stars in six in the West finals. The Golden Knights have scored more goals than anyone else in these playoffs and allowed the fourth fewest goals per game.
“Any narrative to fire up the guys,” star defenseman Brandon Montour said.
There’s also the historical underdog narrative for this franchise, which means less to this specific group of players, but is still part of the story and something they’ve learned more about as the year has progressed.
This is only Florida’s second time in the Final, and in the 27 years since they made the 1996 Stanley Cup Final in only their third season of existence, the Panthers only made the second round of the playoffs once and never won a game once they got there until this year.
It means something to Lomberg, who got a hero’s send-off from fans in his neighborhood as he left his house to leave for Nevada on Thursday. It means something to All-Star center Aleksander Barkov, who was just 17 when Florida took him with the No. 2 pick of the NHL Entry Draft and then spent most of a decade just struggling to even make the playoffs.
Most of all, it matters to this team.
A story like this needs a storybook ending.
“The way things have all worked out to this point,” Lomberg said, “it’s pretty cool.”
This story was originally published June 2, 2023 at 7:42 PM.
