A ‘long summer’ awaits the Florida Panthers. Will it be for the better?
The Florida Panthers knew the end date. They knew when they would take the ice for the final time for this season that had so much promise but fell off the rails so early and so often that they never could get things right.
But that doesn’t numb the pain — both the physical pain of all the injuries and the mental anguish of not living up to expectations — that came with it.
“It’s a long summer,” star winger Matthew Tkachuk said, “and nobody in this locker room likes long summers.”
Florida has five months to reflect on a season that went wayside, one that saw them miss the Stanley Cup playoffs entirely after reaching the Stanley Cup Final each of the past three years and winning it all in consecutive seasons.
There was no quit, no drop in intensity, no lack of effort from the group. They take solace in that.
But the casualties they took along the way proved too much to overcome. Captain Aleksander Barkov didn’t play all season after undergoing surgery. Panthers coach Paul Maurice said the team has eight players with “active fractures” going into the offseason. Seven total players missed at least 30 games.
“The injuries are a legion,” Panthers president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Zito said.
That’s true.
But so is this, according to Maurice: Despite failing to meet their goals, this season does not have to be viewed as an opportunity wasted.
“It’s only a lost year if we allow it to be a lost year,” Maurice said. “It’s only [that] if you lose some of your culture because of a season like this. That happens a lot. Guys start pointing fingers. Guys take off because we’re out of it. They become selfish.”
Maurice saw anything but that approach from his team.
Their finish provided a shining example of just that. Florida had nothing to play for over the final week of the regular season beyond improving its draft lottery odds with the potential to secure a top-10 draft pick. They had anywhere from 12 to 14 regulars out of the lineup at this point.
But they didn’t mail it in. They won those three games against the Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings by a combined 17-5 score.
“I was really happy with the effort, the focus and the professionalism of our guys down the home stretch,” Zito said. “They had fun playing hockey. They cared.”
And it’s why they know they have to take full advantage of this offseason.
Would they rather be playing hockey right now? Absolutely.
But since they don’t have the playoffs to look forward to, the priority shifts to being as ready as possible for next training camp and next season.
The core is intact long-term — Florida has 11 key players signed through at least the 2029-30 season — and the desire to keep the success going is there.
“It’s a great opportunity for guys to reset mentally, physically, and come back with even more hunger next year,” said forward Brad Marchand, who missed nine games in a 13-game stretch and then the final 19 games with a lingering lower-body injury. “Maybe I’d be a little more disappointed with the year if we didn’t have the group going in next year that we will have. We’ll still be, on paper, one of — if not the — best team in the league. And then it’s how we produce on the ice and get back to being at the level that we expect.”
Added Tkachuk: “Hopefully, this is a one-off, because we’ve got too much character in this room to not be playing in late April, May and June. So hopefully we get back to it.”
They have the next five months to get back to where they want to be. It will be a time to rest and recover, something they haven’t really had the past three offseasons after playing all the way through June each year on the quest to win a Stanley Cup. It will be a time of reflection. It will be a time to shore up the roster and to ensure the team’s mindset doesn’t waver as they try to get back to their ultimate goal of competing for championships.
“We either win or we learn,” Zito said, “and it’s never been truer than right now.”
Added Barkov: “We know this year wasn’t what we wanted to do. Next year, we need to work even harder for that, but by no means do I think we took a big step back or anything like that. It was just a lot of adversity that we had to face with the injuries, and that’s it. We need to regroup and get a good summer of rest, good practices, good training and come back even stronger.”
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