Panthers’ driving force to win another Stanley Cup: The newcomers who haven’t won yet
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2025 Stanley Cup Final: Florida vs. Edmonton
The Florida Panthers return to the Stanley Cup Final for the third consecutive year as they face the Edmonton Oilers in a rematch of last season’s final that the Panthers won in seven games.
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Nate Schmdit knew what he was walking into when he signed with the Florida Panthers last summer. It was an opportunity to achieve something he had waited his 12-year career to achieve — a chance to win the Stanley Cup.
His only goal entering the season: Don’t be the one to screw it up.
“You saw a winning recipe that worked,” Schmidt said. “You want to be able to fulfill that as much as you can.”
The majority of this Panthers team has been there and done that. The majority of this team has a Stanley Cup championship to its name. The Panthers have 15 players still on the roster who were part of last season’s team that beat the Edmonton Oilers in seven games for the franchise’s first championship. Two others in Brad Marchand and Nico Sturm have won the Cup at a previous stop, Marchand with the Boston Bruins in 2011 and Sturm with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022.
That leaves eight Panthers players on this roster who haven’t won a cup: forwards Jesper Boqvist, A.J. Greer, Tomas Nosek and Mackie Samoskevich (the latter of whom was with the team as a black ace last year); backup goalie Vitek Vanecek; and defensemen Seth Jones, Schmidt and Jaycob Megna.
“It’s good to have that mix in your room,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “You don’t want necessarily the entire team back the next year where everybody’s reasonably well fed. You want a few hungry guys in there, too.”
With the Stanley Cup Final, a rematch of last year’s matchup with the Panthers and Oilers, starting Wednesday, those players are serving as a driving force for Florida during its quest to repeat.
“We wouldn’t be here without them,” Panthers winger Matthew Tkachuk said. “It’s nothing against what we had last year and years prior, but I just feel like if you’re going to win it again, you need that fresh blood and you need that fresh intensity and the drive. We have that as well, but you just need that little bit of a different look, and we have that this year.”
Florida at its core is still basically the same team it was last year when it won it all for the first time.
But the Panthers had to fill out a few spots on the periphery of the lineup as it lost players to free agency. The entire fourth line from the playoffs — center Kevin Stenlund plus a rotation of wingers in Ryan Lomberg, Nick Cousins, Kyle Okposo and Steven Lorentz — turned over, plus the departure of trade acquisition Vladimir Tarasenko. Two key defensemen in Brandon Montour and Oliver Ekman-Larsson departed for pay raises, as did backup goaltender Anthony Stolarz.
So president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Zito got to work.
He replenished the forward depth by signing Boqvist, Greer and Nosek in addition to having Gadjovich and Samoskevich in line to play bigger roles. Schmidt also signed in the offseason.
And then the moves kept coming at the trade deadline with the acquisitions of Marchand, Jones, Sturm and Vanecek.
While there are high expectations that come with joining a team that just won the Stanley Cup, the newcomers didn’t feel any added pressure when they arrived whether it was in the summer or midseason.
“This locker room is definitely special,” Jones said. “The moment I came into this locker room, you could feel the intensity. You can feel the drive and the willingness to win from top to bottom. It’s a family environment, whether you’re the best player on the team or you’re not in the lineup. Everyone’s treated the same way. We understand that everyone is needed to win. It’s not just on one line, one pair of defensemen. So, it’s a great environment to be in, and we want to keep it going.”
The new players — those who are still seeking their first Cup and those who have won it before — certainly have done their part. Jones has cemented himself on the Panthers’ second defense pairing and runs the top power play. Schmidt runs the second power play and has . Boqvist, Greer, Nosek and Sturm have all played roles rotating in and out on the fourth line, bolstering Florida’s depth at the bottom of the lineup. Marchand has added another veteran presence to the room and has served as a quality complement to Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen on Florida’s third forward line.
The moves have worked and have Florida back in the Stanley Cup Final.
“That fresh blood, that fresh hunger, is something you can feed off of and something I think you need,” forward Evan Rodrigues said. “They’ve stepped in seamlessly. They’ve been pretty impressive all year.”
This story was originally published June 4, 2025 at 3:27 PM.
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