As the 24-year drought continues for Canadian teams in the NHL to celebrate as the NHL champions, the Florida Panthers, who started as a franchise in the NHL in 1993, made sure that this series was the most suspenseful and entertaining of the year. The final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs went to all seven games, with the Panthers winning 2-1. After being down 0-3 to start the series, on the brink of elimination, and nearly imploding while being outscored by the Oilers 5-18 during the first three games, the Florida Panthers are now the 2023-2024 Stanley Cup Champions. They ensured that every hour, every minute, and every second went down to the wire before they could hoist the Lord Stanley and bring it down to Florida, resulting in one heck of a 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 all five of the Top 5 leaders in points, yet still failing to reach the pinnacle and 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 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, both ending the postseason with 22 points.
To have all five of those all-stars leading in the points column and still lose to the Florida Panthers, who looked entirely defeated in the first three games, is incomprehensible. But let’s not forget that the Panthers had Alexander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk, both tied at #4 with 22 points, Carter Verhaeghe at #8 with 11 goals, and Sam Reinhart at #11 with 10 goals. Considering the Oilers were dominant in almost every aspect of the game, this goes to show that hockey is the ultimate team sport when it comes to depth and being able to utilize every ounce of talent on the roster. If you look at goaltending, the Panthers came in 6th, which is a great place to be, considering every team in front of them was eliminated earlier during the postseason.
When it came down to “Powerplay Percentage,” the Panthers came in at 11th, which is mediocre but acceptable depending on who the opponent was in front of Florida. Clearly, goaltending, defense, and avoiding doltish penalties to stay out of the penalty box will give any team a better chance to get 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 Tkachuk family. Throughout the entire playoffs, you would catch glimpses of Matthew’s father, Keith Tkachuk, and his brother, Brady Tkachuk, in their box showing a vivacious amount of support for Matthew every time his blades hit the ice.
Another huge supporter, who is now also a champion for the first time in his career this year, is his childhood friend Jayson Tatum, who also had an outstanding season with the Boston Celtics in the National Basketball Association. Known far and wide, Tatum and Tkachuk were both Red Devils during their illustrious run together at Chaminade Prep, 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