The Florida Panthers celebrate after defeating the Carolina Hurricanes in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at FLA Live Arena on May 22, 2023 in Sunrise, Florida.
Posted on 05/24/2023 7:35:24 AM PDT by FLNittany
The Florida Panthers celebrate after defeating the Carolina Hurricanes in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs at FLA Live Arena on May 22, 2023 in Sunrise, Florida.
SUNRISE, Fla. – The Florida Panthers have exceeded expectations every step of the way during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Now, South Florida’s hockey team is one game away from doing something it hasn’t done since 1996.
During Monday night’s Eastern Conference Final Game 3, it only took one goal.
Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky made 32 saves for his first career playoff shutout to help the Panthers take a commanding 3-0 lead in the series.
Alex Lopez, Jacob Langsam, And TJ Peterson are life-long Panthers fans.
“Everything that’s been going on, it’s just…wow” said Lopez.
The three have a podcast called Panther Pouri, and they, like other diehard fans, are enjoying this ride as much as they can.
“To say surreal doesn’t even really capture it,” said Peterson. “It was surreal two weeks ago. This doesn’t happen to the Florida Panthers, it simply doesn’t.”
On Tuesday, Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad and forward Eetu Luostarinen addressed the media inside FLA Live Arena.
Ekblad, who has been with the Panthers since being selected first overall in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft, said the team and its fans deserve this.
“Waiting, working to get here, to get to this opportunity, is obviously a long time coming for us, for them,” said Ekblad. “It’s huge, it’s exciting.”
And the fans couldn’t agree more.
“It’s the most energizing feeling that I’ve ever experienced as a hockey fan, being in this building, just packed to the rafters with Panthers fans,” said Langsam. “The rafters which hopefully will have another couple of banners hanging in the near future.”
There was also some good news from Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice on Tuesday.
He said he’s “optimistic” Florida captain Aleksander Barkov, who left Monday’s game during the first period with a lower-body injury, will be available for Game 4 on Wednesday.
It’s not Hurricanes season in Miami.
Bob’s been doing a most excellent job at goal keeping this season. He used to play for the Columbus Blue Jackets, and I really liked him then, too. This has been a great season to watch the playoffs. Very exciting!
Judging from the UM 2022 football record (5–7 (3–5 ACC) I’d say it’s more of a tropical depression.
So it looks like Florida vs Las Vegas in the Stanley Cup Final.
This is not Old Time Hockey!
I've said for years that there are only 8-9 solid NHL markets in North America -- and by this I mean a metro area where 15,000+ fans will show up even if it is late in the season and the team is out of contention. These are the Original Six (Montreal, Toronto, Boston, New York, Detroit and Chicago) plus Philadelphia and Edmonton ... and maybe Buffalo, too.
Winnipeg might be on the cusp of this status right now.
All the other NHL teams seem to be in marginal markets where fans will come out and support the team when it is playing well, but they vanish when times aren't so good.
To show you how quickly fortunes change for these marginal teams, here's a link to an article that was published just over a year ago, naming five NHL teams that were candidates for relocation:
Two of the five (Florida and Carolina) are facing each other in the Eastern Conference Finals this season.
I haven’t followed the playoffs closely since my STL Blues didn’t even make it to the first round. But, the Panthers caught my eye with their improbable first round win over the Bruins. They were literally a minute away from elimination, and came up with a miraculous finish. While being a “team of destiny” is a questionable thing, you have to wonder if the Panthers have something special going for them.
Having the best regular season in history is certainly no guarantee to a championship, especially if you run into a "hot" team in the playoffs, as the Bruins did this year.
Looks like the Coyotes will be moving. I’d like to see a team back in Quebec, and bring back the Nordiques.
Yes - quite a run for SoFla sports lately. Weird how it cycles and the in-game performance/fan interest can go from nothing to everything in a year or two - in all sports.
The Canes can't give tickets away, but if they somehow went 11-1 next season all the Walmart apparel fans would come out of the woodwork by the end of the season, and they'd come much closer to Dolphin attendance.
The Marlins have made the playoffs twice and won 2 WS titles. I was there in 03 when there were <10K fans at nearly every game. Come WS time, they crammed 70K into Joe Robbie Stadium.
It's just the SoFla way.
There's an astute hockey guru who weighs in on these things through an online blog or vlog. He says it's unlikely we'll see an NHL team back in Quebec anytime soon. He has a keen understanding of the NHL business model, and his take on this is very interesting.
The Gary Bettman business model for the NHL isn't based on the strength of a market for hockey, but on the growth prospects it offers to attract new hockey fans. This is what drove the whole migration to places like Florida, Phoenix, Dallas, Raleigh-Durham, Nashville and Columbus in the first place.
This guy thinks Quebec has one important characteristic that makes it a POOR prospect for an NHL franchise: It is already a strong NHL market even without an NHL team. They get great NHL TV ratings up there. NHL sponsors in Canada do very well in Quebec. Quebec Nordiques jerseys are still one of the top NHL-branded items sold around North America today.
The most likely candidates for new or relocated NHL teams (in no particular order) are:
- Houston
- Atlanta
- Kansas City
- Salt Lake City
- Milwaukee
- Hamilton, Ontario OR a second Toronto team
When the NHL expanded in 1967, they put all the expansion teams in the Campbell Conference (the predecessor to the Western Conference), and kept the "Original Six" teams in the Prince of Wales (Eastern) Conference. They probably figured this was a good way to ensure that expansion teams would have some financial success by making the playoffs and contending for the Stanley Cup Finals. The new teams were typical of the expansion teams in any sport from that era -- with their rosters filled with untested rookies and veterans who were way past their primes.
The St. Louis Blues made it to the Stanley Cup Finals in each of the first three post-expansion seasons, then got swept in the Finals every year by dominant Prince of Wales Conference teams -- first Montreal (twice), then Boston in 1970.
If they do move, I think Houston is probably the top-destination.
Florida
Vegas
Dallas
Carolina
Playing the world’s most important hockey in May and June.
The NHL is broken.
No Canadian team has won The Cup since 1993.
The Panthers are based in Coral Springs, FL (an hour and 1/2 from Miami) at the Florida Panthers IceDen and consider themselves as a “Florida” team...
Not a “Miami” team...
The Ottawa Senators play in an arena in Kanata, way out to the west of Ottawa. They're still an Ottawa team.
The Cowboys play in Arlington, 45 minutes from downtown Dallas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.