Sunrise, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Panthers are recurring as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1, 5-1 in the finals on Tuesday night, becoming the first NHL background winner since 2020 and ’21 Tampa Bay, entering the century to come.
Sam Reinhart scored four goals, becoming the fourth player in league history and earning many in the finals. His third, who completed the rat that was sent to a hat trick, is flying on the ice with his hat. One of the franchise’s faces, Matthew Tokachuk, has properly won the Cup clincher.
At the other end of the ice, Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of the 29 shots he faced, closing the door in the rematch with the same final result. The only goal was from the Russian Vasily Podkordin companion in garbage time, long after the outcome was determined.
The chant followed, “We Want a Cup!” When time ticking the clock. The Panthers already had it. Now they’ll start to keep it up.
Not long after Lightning traveled three times in a row in a row in the final, Florida has done the same thing, and now it is creating a modern dynasty. Since Matthew Tokachuk arrived on trade, the Panthers have won 11 of 12 playoff series, with Paul Maurice taking over coaching in the summer of 2022.
They were on the wrong side of the handshake line in the 2023 final in Vegas, but only after dealing with the serious injuries and rage of several key players.
From the cores of Tkachuk, Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov and Sam Bennett, they were much healthier this time, boosted by the major trade deadlines of Brad Marchand and Seth Jones. Bennett led all goalscorers this postseason with 15, while Marchand scored six in the final.
Getting depth contributions from the entire lineup has overwhelmed Connor McDavid, Leon Dry Sightle and the Oilers. Stuart Skinner nodded in Game 6 and finished again with a mistake before him.
McDavid took over, but was stymed again by Barkov, Jones and Bobrovsky. He finished with seven points on his second career trip to the Finals, again rejecting his first title.
The Stanley Cup drought in Canada reached Montreal in 1993 with a season of 31 and 32. The US Sunbelt team has won five of the last six and four in Florida.
This showed how the Panthers became clinical under Maurice, with five people running, with seven people running in Toronto, Carolina five, and Edmonton six.
Same goes for Merchand, who last rolled up the cup with the Boston Bruins in 2011. The 14-year gap was 16 in Chris Chelios from 1986 to 2002 and 15 in Mark Recchi from 91 to 2006, the third longest in league history.
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AP NHL Playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
