As the champagne hangovers fade, the Florida Panthers enter the 2024-2025 NHL season with the weight of high expectations, striving to defend their Stanley Cup championship.
After clinching their first-ever title in the franchise’s 30-year history, the Panthers last week expressed their hunger for a fresh new season filled with eagerness and hope.
“Everyone wants to play all the way until the end,” Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov said at the club’s Media Day, 24 hours before the official opening of training camp. “[Everyone] wants to play in the finals and wants to win the Cup.”
Barkov, the two-time Selke Trophy winner — awarded to the NHL’s top defensive forward — recorded 23 goals and 57 assists last regular season, solidifying his status as a key leader in a room full of them.
Last season’s championship win bolstered hockey culture in South Florida, igniting a passion for the sport that had, until recently, been relatively uncommon for the Sunshine State.
The Panthers averaged 18,632 fans in attendance last season, marking the highest per-game average in franchise history. However, as the team gears up for a new season, they face the challenge of navigating the ice without a few key players whose names were etched onto the Stanley Cup.
In fact, several beloved contributors have moved on. The departures of Brandon Montour to the Seattle Kraken and Oliver Ekman-Larsson to the Toronto Maple Leafs leave crucial holes in the defense, while forwards Vladimir Tarasenko (Detroit Red Wings), Ryan Lomberg (Calgary Flames), and retired veteran Kyle Okposo have also vacated the roster.
To fill these gaps, general manager Bill Zito brought in defensemen Nate Schmidt and Adam Boqvist, along with forwards Tomas Nosek and A.J. Greer.
“I’m pretty blessed to be here,” Schmidt said, “and given how things have gone with Paul and myself — I felt so re-energized when I had him my first year in Winnipeg — [it’s] just his style and how he treats players. Understanding what you need to do for him to get the most out of you, and the most out of your group.”
Schmidt indeed will be reuniting with coach Paul Maurice, who coached him for part of his 2021-2022 season with the Jets.
“It was a pretty quick decision on my part,” Schmidt said. “I was going through the free-agency process and had this place highlighted as somewhere that I really wanted to go, and hopefully it would work out.”
Schmidt’s veteran presence will help anchor the defensive unit as the team adapts to changes in the lineup. And though the Panthers have welcomed several new names, maintaining the core of what is left of their championship-winning roster remains crucial.
One of the key figures in that core is Sam Reinhart, who not only re-signed with the team but also demonstrated his value last season with a career-high 57 goals. The Canadian-born leading scorer agreed to an eight-year, $69 million contract extension right before hitting free agency in July, and just a few days after winning the Cup.
“As a player, there are a lot of boxes you try to tick off. Florida, for me, just happened to be at the top of each category,” Reinhart said of the deal. “Where the organization is — what we’ve done the last couple years, where we’ve gotten to — it wasn’t something that we wanted to walk away from. Eager for more. We want to keep putting in the work and we want to keep doing it here.”
The Panthers’ regular-season hunt to defend their Stanley Cup championship begins on Oct. 8, when they host the Boston Bruins at Amerant Bank Arena. The 2024-2025 season promises to be another wild ride in the Sunshine State, where the Panthers aim to leave their mark once again.
