Dmitry Kulikov’s defining Florida Panthers moment was pivotal in winning a Stanley Cup

Even hours after he made a potentially championship-saving play and got his long moment with the Stanley Cup on Monday, Dimitry Kulikov still wasn’t quite sure how to describe the play that will go down as his signature moment as a Florida Panther.

With five minutes left in the second period, the puck sat on the doorstep of the Panthers’ goal, just out of the reach of Sergei Bobrovsky, and Kulikov went flying into the net, pushed from behind by an Edmonton Oiler desperate to give his team the lead. Kulikov had merely an instant to make a play, so the defenseman reached backward and did whatever he could to poke the puck out of harm’s way.

“It happened so fast,” Kulikov said.

The puck wound up behind the net, where Carter Verhaeghe scooped it up. Verhaeghe hit fellow forward Sam Reinhart in transition and Reinhart scored the Cup-winning goal 11 seconds later. The Panthers won their first championship 2-1 in Game 7 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final and Kulikov, who began his career in Florida in 2009 and finally returned home in the offseason after bouncing around with six teams in the past seven years, delivered one of the most improbable hero plays in a game full of them.

Kulikov, 33, always felt like this was a full-circle season, returning to the team that drafted him in the first round of the 2009 NHL Entry Draft. Now, this season unquestionably was.

“I guess it was meant to be,” said captain Aleksander Barkov, who was one of only two Panthers to play with Kulikov during his first stint in South Florida.

Kulikov remembers when Barkov joined the Panthers as a first-round pick in 2013 and when defenseman Aaron Ekblad did the same in 2014. He was their veteran at the time, helping show them the ropes of what it was like to play in the NHL. All together, they did not win very often, making the Stanley Cup playoffs just once before the Panthers traded Kulikov to the Sabres in the 2016 offseason.

While Kulikov was gone, Ekblad and Barkov helped finally build Florida into a consistent winner and Kulikov, who still spent his summers training in Coral Springs, jumped on the chance to rejoin the Panthers when they offered him a one-year, $1 million deal last year.

Florida badly needed defensive depth with Ekblad and fellow defenseman Brandon Montour starting the season on long-term injured reserve, and Kulikov never relinquished his spot in the lineup, even when those two returned. His 20 points in the regular season were his most since the 2021-22 NHL season and gave him only his second 20-point season since he left the Panthers.

In the postseason, he added two more assists, including one on the title-winning goal. He was fifth in line to hoist the Cup, after only Barkov, star goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, 35-year-old forward Kyle Okposo and 32-year-old defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, his partner on Florida’s third defensive pairing throughout the season.

“I never thought I’d be in this position,” Kulikov said. “Lifting the Cup feels like lifting all the weight off my shoulders.”

For those who were there when Kulikov was first a Panther, the goal-saving moment was thrilling—even if it wasn’t immediately clear it happened.

“Was it Kuli behind there? I haven’t seen it yet,” Ekblad said. “I was asking Bob. He was like, I have no idea. That’s a huge moment. I love it.”

With the season on the line after blowing a 3-0 series lead to the Oilers, Florida needed to be basically perfect on defense and, thanks to plays like Kulikov’s, the Panthers were.

Florida blocked 17 shots, and held Edmonton to just 15 shots and 11 scoring chances in the first two periods before it had to go all out on offense in the third.

Even then, the Panthers withstood the relentless push. They finished the regular season with the second fewest goals allowed and, in their biggest moment, they won with defense again.

“We knew that all 23 guys were going to do what it takes to win this game,” Kulikov said. “We did it all together.”

This story was originally published June 25, 2024 at 1:32 AM.