SUNRISE, Fla. — Some top Florida Panthers players gutted through significant injuries to help them repeat as Stanley Cup champions, most notably Matthew Tkachuk dealing with a sports hernia and torn adductor muscle on the same side.
“He was a mess,” coach Paul Maurice said. “That’s the medical term: He was a mess.”
Maurice said Aleksander Barkov’s point production in the final was affected by one of the captain’s hands being cut open and that Sam Reinhart returned from a Grade 2 MCL sprain in the Eastern Conference final.
“In Game 1, Sasha split the palm of his hand open,” Maurice said. “He had those sutures torn out twice ’til he just glued it together.”
Reinhart came back to score four goals in the clinching Game 6 against Edmonton. No player has done that since Maurice “Rocket Richard” in 1957.
Tkachuk scored what turned out to be the Cup-winning goal, four months after getting injured playing for the U.S. in the 4 Nations Face-Off. He missed the second half of the regular season.
“I was really not hopeful at the start that he would survive the first round,” Maurice said. “We just didn’t think he could do it.”
Smiling ear to ear on the ice after hoisting the Cup, Tkachuk beamed about the medical treatment that made him able to play.
“I wouldn’t be here without the trainers and the doctors and those people, and that’s what makes this Cup more special for me is how hard it was just to be out there and to get to the point of playing,” Tkachuk said. “I owe — this Cup is because of them for me. I’m so lucky.”
Corey Perry became the first player in NHL history to lose in the final five times in six years with four different teams. Perry was also with the Oilers last year and before that lost in 2022 with Tampa Bay, 2021 with Montreal and 2020 with Dallas.
Had Edmonton won, Perry would have broken the record for the longest gap between Cup championships. He won it with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007.
Barkov did not hand the Stanley Cup to a longtime teammate like Aaron Ekblad or Sergei Bobrovsky. It went to newcomer and third-pairing defenseman Nate Schmidt, who won it for the first time in his career.
“He just looked at me and he gave me the ‘Cap’ death stare,” Schmidt said. “You don’t turn those eyes away. No, I didn’t know. It was awesome.”
Schmidt then handed it to Seth Jones, who gave it to Tomas Nosek to Vitek Vanecek to A.J. Greer and on to all the other players who hadn’t hoisted the Cup before. Jones, a trade acquisition from Chicago late in the season, later celebrated on the ice with his father, retired NBA player Popeye Jones.
“ looked me and he said, ‘Hey, the guys that haven’t done it before, we’re going to take a back seat to you guys,’” Schmidt said. “It means a lot.”
There are a few teams that people point to when the word dynasty comes up. Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. The Tom Brady-led New England Patriots. After successfully defending their title, should this Panthers team be added to that list?
“Hell yeah,” Matthew Tkachuk said. “Absolutely.”
The dynasty talk started before the series even began, when it became clear that the Florida Panthers would play in their third straight Stanley Cup Final. They’ve played more hockey games than any other team in the NHL over the past three years, which obviously means they’ve done a lot of winning.
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