Panthers BACK-TO-BACK Champs! Dynasty Debate & Paul Maurice’s Genius Moves 🔥

Peter Klein

The Florida Panthers are Stanley Cup champions again. Here's a look at their dynasty potential, key players, and what’s next for the team.  **Follow for more NHL & CFL coverage!**  #Panthers #StanleyCup #NHL

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00:00The Florida Panthers, maybe they aren't a dynasty yet, but they are certainly, as Chris Cuthbert

00:13said, they are knocking on dynasty's door after back-to-back Stanley Cup championship victories,

00:19a what ends up being convincing championship run for the Panthers as they dominated. They

00:29really did. It was a very, very good performance from this team, and I think they wore down

00:38the Edmonton Oilers as the series went on. I really do believe that this was a major problem

00:44for Edmonton, and this Panthers team, it is a relentless style, it is a very impressive style

00:52that they put on these teams, and the fact that they are able to do this after winning the Stanley

00:58Cup last year is nothing short of incredible, to be able to put that type of a performance

01:04together. So very, very impressive stuff here from the Florida Panthers. I'm blown away that

01:12a team can do that type of a performance in the Stanley Cup final while having won it a

01:19year ago. Like, to have the desperation to do that again is so very impressive. So, hats off.

01:27Sea of dead hat off to the Florida Panthers for what they did. Like, it was just, it was complete

01:32control. It is what it was. It was on the offensive side, wearing down the defense, and that aggressive

01:40forecheck, relentless pressure forcing the turnovers, and it is just, the added pressure, obviously,

01:45like, that forecheck is relentless and everything with that, but also, to have the other team knowing

01:53that any mistake they make is gonna come back into a high danger opportunity for you, that, that's a

02:00very, very, very scary proposition for these teams to deal with. And Edmonton, it, it wore them down

02:07at some point. Like, Edmonton, they, they certainly had their injury issues and all of those things,

02:11but they were, they were beaten up by the end of this. They were. And the Panthers really just

02:16absolutely took it to them. Defensively, it wasn't a brilliant performance on all accounts, but what they

02:23is going to stick with me for a very long time. And none of it is on a McDavid. I will put that out

02:31there. This is a team that did one of the best jobs on one of the best players to have ever played the

02:37game that I have seen in any sport. When you look at how well they were able to limit Connor McDavid

02:44and the opportunities that he had, what Barkov was able to do, what Reinhardt was able to do,

02:49and what this whole defense was able to put out there was just so incredible. The job they did in

02:56limiting McDavid. Did it lead to chances for other people? Yeah, it did. Did it lead to some breakdowns

03:01early on in the series? It absolutely did. You could see, and this was one of the things that

03:05impressed me too about this Panthers team as the series went on, is that they got better. As this

03:13series went on, they got better. And they learned from some of the mistakes. You look at a couple of

03:20the first games, you would have a couple of guys following McDavid. Just like anytime he would have

03:26it, okay, we're on to him. And that led to a lot of weak side opportunities. Bobrovsky would stop some,

03:30he wouldn't stop all of them. Eventually, they figured out how to handle that. And they allowed a

03:35couple of opportunities for Bouchard. We kind of talked about it on some of the other podcasts here.

03:39But they allowed Bouchard this opportunity because the Oilers were doing this kind of high in the

03:44zone cycle with Nugent Hopkins and with McDavid. And Nugent would drop it off and a defender followed

03:50him. And they drop it to McDavid, so obviously a defender's following him. Well, now you have two

03:54defenders over on that side of the ice who are occupied. You have two down at the front of the net

03:58and like 90% of the zone is just wide open for Bouchard to walk in. He gets a great opportunity and

04:04it stopped. Later that same game, Edmonton did the same thing. Florida State stayed put. They did

04:10a fantastic job of still limiting the top players, but not over committing to it to allow some of the

04:15other high level players that Edmonton had to slow them down in any way. Just fantastic, fantastic work

04:24from this team. And they really should be applauded for it. And then something that could be lost in a lot

04:31of what happened in this series is Sergei Bobrovsky. A lot of the talk in net was on the Edmonton side.

04:38Bobrovsky, I think, deserves some flowers because he was excellent. And I think that was a big part of

04:45the frustration for Edmonton is that they were getting some chances and he was there to shut the

04:49door time after time after time after time. Just not letting them get any opportunities and

04:56really frustrating, this Edmonton team. He was excellent. He wasn't what he was last year. There's no

05:02question about that. He was not that guy. But he was such a dominant force between the pipes in this

05:09series still that it was enough to get the Panthers a pretty convincing win at the end of it. And so now

05:16you look at what this means historically as I mean, like I'm based in Calgary, I'm on Calgary radio out

05:24here more often than not recently. But the general wisdom is that the Panthers have vanquished evil.

05:32And there's a lot of people in this part of the world who are very, very excited that the Florida

05:37Panthers have knocked off the Edmonton Oilers, the present company included in that. But you do have to

05:45look at the overall like, okay, is something like this good for hockey, I would say. And my initial

05:52thought is yes, you don't want this kind of a dominant run to last forever. You don't want,

05:58oh wow, the Panthers have won seven in a row, champions again. You don't want that sort of a

06:03thing. But it is good to have a standard bearer. It is good to have, quite frankly, for those not in

06:09Florida and Southern Alberta, it is good to have a villain out there. And the Florida Panthers

06:15are that. And now they are the measuring stick in the National Hockey League. Three Stanley Cup

06:19appearances, no duh. Back-to-back Stanley Cup championships, yeah, that's going to give you

06:24that measuring stick label. But they are, I think, a great example of what happens when you run an

06:30organization properly, when you actually put the right people in place, and build a culture around

06:38this team. So is it good to have a top team like this, or is parity the way to go? I think having

06:44a top team like this is good for a while. As long as, like I said, it's not like five, six, seven

06:49Stanley Cups, and they're just dominating there. But it is good for stints to have a team that everyone

06:55is measuring up against, so that you know, all right, if nothing else, this is the game I need to

06:59watch. Because as you're trying to grow the game, it's not just going to be, oh, there's any hockey

07:04on, let me watch this. You need to have a marquee team that people know who to pay attention to.

07:10And right now, that team in the NHL is the Florida Panthers. You don't want parity because then

07:15everyone feels the same. And if anyone, if everyone feels the same, no one is special. And if no one is

07:20special, no one's watching. So this type of a thing from the Panthers, I think it's a good thing for the

07:25National Hockey League. We can have debates about how they got here with the, the tax thing and all of

07:29that. But I, I think that this is, I think it's great. I think it is awesome for the sport that

07:36you have a team in a non-traditional hockey market. And I get there's been a few of them recently,

07:40but you have a team in a non-traditional hockey market getting this type of a buzz

07:43in their market. So credit to them for that. The question now is, is this a dynasty? And to that,

07:52I would say no. They, to me, it has to be like kind of a four-year run for there to be the dynasty

07:59call and three championship wins have to be involved. I think like back to back is very

08:04impressive. Don't get me wrong. Only two. How could you? Obviously that's not the case, but I do

08:11think having, having a run of four and having at some point you win three in a row or not three in

08:19a row, but three in a reasonable amount of time, not three in 10 years, but like three, three and

08:25four would do it three and five. Yes. Three and six. And we're pushing it a little bit,

08:29but they are right on the doorstep and they have a lot of interesting questions. Now this off season

08:35with Ekblad, with Bennett, with Brad Marchand, what do they do with those guys? They are at a point with

08:41roster construction, with how I view them as a, a team building, um, group and how I view them as

08:50an organization that just knows how to scout. Um, I, I view this as a team that now, um,

08:59is one where if you have any kind of a problem, like, okay, well, yes, Bennett's leaving. So we

09:06have to figure this out. Um, so what do we do? Okay. Well, we found this guy for $875,000 and we just

09:14kind of plucked him, brought him on our, our roster and Hey, look at that. Now we won again. You know,

09:19like, I, I feel like that is that that's probably the way that this team goes is like, will they,

09:25I, I think that Bennett should want to stay in Florida. I think that Bennett should try desperately

09:30to stay in Florida. And I think that this is a spot that is perfect for him. But if he leaves,

09:37I do trust that this team will be able to find the next Sam Bennett and try to, to go about it that

09:43way. So we'll, we'll have more conversations, uh, like that, um, on future episodes and looking at,

09:51um, looking at like what, what they can do, what they can find with this team to see how they can

09:58get to, get to where that they want to get to, I guess here in the Stanley cup playoffs. Uh, we have

10:04a chat from, uh, deeds. Um, this one here, highly impressive how they've gone to three straight

10:11finals and two straight cups. That's a lot of hockey in the last three years it is. And to stay

10:17so motivated to, to, to do what they have done is so freaking impressive. And to be able to play that

10:25style too. It's not like it is just like a run and gun, whatever that this is a style that is really

10:31hard to play. Matthew Kachuk's skeleton is just basically floating empty in his body because all

10:37the muscles have detached from it at this point. Like that, that's the type of commitment we are

10:42talking about with this team and with this guy. And they, they still go out, they still play that

10:47style. It is still successful for them, obviously. And now they have Stanley cups. Also want to shout

10:52out deeds in the chat, uh, reaching sweet 16 here with, um, primetime PK over on Twitch as he has

10:59subscribed now for 16 months. So a huge thank you to deeds for that. Wherever you are watching this,

11:05uh, if you want to hit that subscribe button, that would be so greatly appreciated. Um, and, uh,

11:10deeds always fun having you in the chat. So we'll, we'll talk about some legacy things. We'll talk about

11:14different free agent stuff as we get into off season mode coming up a little bit later on.

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