As the 24-year drought continues for Canadian teams in the NHL to be able to celebrate as the NHL champions, the Florida Panthers who started as a franchise in the NHL in 1993 had to make sure that they made this series the most suspenseful entertaining series of the year. Making the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs go to 7 games, at length winning 2-1. After being down 0-3 to start the series on the brink of elimination to nearly imploding while being outscored by the Oilers 5-18 during the first 3 games, the Florida Panthers are now the 2023-2024 Stanley Cup Champions. Making sure that every hour, every minute, and every second went down to the wire before they were able to hoist the Lord Stanley and bring it down to Florida. For what will be one heck of celebration for every die-hard hockey fan in the state of Florida excluding Tampa Bay Lightning fans.
One of the most astonishing yet overlooked stat lines during the Stanley Cup finals is the Edmonton Oilers having 4 out of the top 5 leaders in points, and still failing to end their season in victory. In the points column, the Oilers had Connor McDavid at #1 with 42 points, Evan Bouchard at #2 with 32 points, Leon Draisaitl at #3 with 31 points, and Zach Hyman tied at #4 with Alexander Barkov both ending the postseason with 22 points. To have all four of those all-stars leading in the points column and still lose to The Florida Panthers in game 7 is incomprehensible. But let’s not forget that the Panthers had Carter Verhaeghe with 11 goals, and Sam Reinhart with 10 goals when those goals were really needed. With that being said, the game of hockey is the ultimate team game when it comes to the comradery and utilizing every ounce of talent on a team roster. If you look at “Goals Per Game”, the Panthers came in 4th in the NHL, which is a great place to be in that stat column. And then you look at “Goaltending”, which the Panthers came in 6th in the NHL, which is also a stat line that isn’t praised enough. When it came down to “Powerplay Percentage”, the Panthers came in 11th. So that goes to show that staying out of the penalty box avoiding doltish penalties will give any team a better chance to put them ahead of the pack when lacking talent compared to their opponents in the scoring/points column.
To make the 2023-2024 season even more special for the reigning Stanley Cup champions, Matthew Tkachuk is now the only Stanley Cup champion in an immensely talented Tkachuck family. Throughout the entire playoffs you would get a glimpse of Matthew’s father Keith Tkachuck, and his brother Brady Tkachuck showing their vivacious amount of support for Matthew every time his blades hit the ice. Hoping that he would be able to bring the piece of hardware home that every kid with the dream of being in the NHL could ever ask for. Another huge supporter who is now also a champion for the first time in his career this year would be his childhood friend Jayson Tatum who had an outstanding season with the Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association. Known far and wide, Tatum and Tkachuck were both Red Devils during their illustrious run together at Chaminade Prep, which was a small but now very well-known Catholic school in St. Louis. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see these two highly touted champions bring both pieces of hardware back to the old stomping grounds where it all began.
Photo Credit: ESPN
