Nate Schmidt ‘found his fun again' with Panthers en route to sensational playoffs run

New York Times

5 hours ago

FT. LAUDERDALE, Fla. — It was one of Nate Schmidt's first preseason games with the Florida Panthers. He tried something on the ice, but it didn't exactly work as planned. He returned to the bench, and in no uncertain terms, someone shouted over to him, 'We don't do that here.'
It wasn't coach Paul Maurice, whom he played for briefly in Winnipeg and loved every second with, nor assistant Sylvain Lefebvre, who runs the defensemen.
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It was one of his new teammates.
Schmidt won't reveal who. Asked if he could at least say what he did, Schmidt — 33 years old and a veteran of 741 regular-season games and another 95 in the playoffs — said with a laugh, 'I cannot.'
But it was in that moment with those few terse words that Schmidt realized how high the standards were in Florida.
'This team has such a defined way that they play, and you just have to get on board,' he said.
It also reinforced why he chose to sign a one-year, $800,000 contract to play here.
Schmidt wants to win and reestablish himself after a rough final year with the Winnipeg Jets as a quality, trustworthy and (as we all know by now) energetic, talkative and bubbly hockey player. He could have made double the money elsewhere, but he turned down that opportunity to sign with the Panthers two days into last summer's free agency.
So this decision wasn't financial. Coming to South Florida was about finding the right fit and potentially winning the Stanley Cup, knowing full well that if he played well and won, he'll probably get paid on his next contract this summer.
'It's not easy to do this year after year, and this team went to the finals two years ago and won the Cup last year,' Schmidt said after Sunday's practice in advance of Monday night's Game 3 against the Edmonton Oilers. 'So you wonder, 'Would they have enough in the tank? Can I be a help?' But when I went through the roster early last summer, this is exactly what I envisioned.'
VIDEO!
Inside the @flapanthers Radio Booth for the first of Nate Schmidt's two goals during Tuesday's Game 1 win over the Lightning. pic.twitter.com/X2xanax0RR
— Doug Plagens (@DougPlagens) April 23, 2025
The one thing about the Panthers and the culture that players like Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad and Sergei Bobrovsky have cultivated is that everybody is welcome and can be themselves. Carter Verhaeghe says one of the nicest things he can say about the Panthers is that when you walk into their locker room, you feel like you've been there for 10 years.
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Schmidt, a former University of Minnesota star who grew up in St. Cloud, Minn., feels that way now. But he admits that even being as comfortable in his own skin as he is, as confident as he can come across, he was walking on eggshells those first couple of weeks.
The longtime NHLer with a long pedigree of playoff success still saw a winning recipe that worked and didn't want to mess it up. Plus, when a significant defenseman like Brandon Montour departs via free agency, there is an internal pressure to make everyone feel like you're replacing that player perfectly.
'There were still (nerves),' Schmidt said. 'I found it pretty difficult for the first couple of weeks, being like, 'Hey, how do you find your way with this team that just won? How do you know where you fit in with this group and what you can do to provide? Is it enough? Is it the same as (the players) they lost?' All those things get in your head until the first couple weeks. Then you start to settle in and you get into the system and then you start to get integrated with the guys and then, as a veteran guy, you start to let your own personality start to show. I found that just being me is the easiest way to go about doing it.'
And one reason the Panthers showed such interest in Schmidt is his motormouth personality. As Maurice jokes, some of the players Florida lost — Montour, Nick Cousins, Josh Mahura and Ryan Lomberg, to name a few — were loud, boisterous and 'didn't shut up.'
Schmidt could fill that role.
'I think it's something we knew right from training camp, right when he came in,' said first-line right winger Sam Reinhart. 'You need those personalities in the room, especially this time of year when games get tighter. Nothing changes with him. It's huge to have personalities like that in the long run.'
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Plus, Schmidt is a good player. Just look at his postseason for the Panthers.
On a blue line that leads the NHL with 17 goals and 46 points in 19 playoff games, Schmidt is tied with Ekblad for the lead with 11 points. He scored the game winner in each of his first two playoff games against Tampa Bay, becoming the second defenseman since 1943-44 to score the winner in each of his team's first two playoff games. He has scored at least one postseason goal with four different franchises (Washington, Vegas, Winnipeg and Florida), the only active defenseman to achieve this feat. He joined Mike Green, Janne Laukkanen and Sergei Gonchar as one of four NHL defensemen in the past 30 years to score multiple goals in a playoff debut with a franchise.
And two games into the Stanley Cup Final, Schmidt has four assists, three primary, including some beauties on two goals by Sam Bennett and one by Brad Marchand, and one secondary assist on a Seth Jones goal that was downright gorgeous after evading a couple of defenders.
SETH JONES! WHAT A PLAY BY NATE SCHMIDT! 2-2 pic.twitter.com/uimx6A23AU
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) June 7, 2025
'I'm so happy for him, especially because I go back to the kind of conversations we had (last) summer of what he was looking for from a tour with the Florida Panthers,' Maurice said. 'He's not 23 anymore, and he wanted to get his game back. That was the whole point. He felt he was a better player than he was playing, and he took full responsibility for that. There was no blame to anybody else.
'He just thought he had more to give, and it took him probably three or four months to get used to the way that we play, and since that time he's been incredibly effective. What I'm most happy for, for him, is especially in Game 1, (Game 2) as well, but he's getting up the ice and he looks like he did when he was a kid when he first came into the league in Washington. He was dynamic with the way he'd get up the ice. And then coaches beat that out of you and take the fun out of the game for you, but it looks like he's found his fun again.'
This postseason, Schmidt is reminding the rest of the league he can still play this game and at a high level. If the Panthers don't have the cap space to bring him back, that'll come in handy July 1 when he's due for a new contract.
'The other part of it is kind of reminding yourself that you have that game in you and you're just unlocking it,' Schmidt said. 'Being able to feel the confidence from your staff and any other guys, and just the team in general. Our team believes that we have a good structure, a good chemistry, all those things. But when you get on the ice and when all the things have to come together in order to win a game, that's when you start to really feel that continuity on the bench and on the ice.'
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Schmidt said when he first arrived in Florida, he sat down with Lefebvre and was provided a blueprint of how he wanted his defensemen to play, but then the coaches adapt the plan to the new players' strengths and begin tailoring it for them. But he also said the Panthers' system is complicated and it takes time to master the nuances.
Schmidt admittedly struggled at first. He was scratched in the season opener but has been a lineup constant for the most part since. He says he started to feel comfortable when the Panthers traveled to Finland for the Global Series late last October and early November to play Dallas.
'It was like, 'OK, there's a role for you here,'' Schmidt said. 'That's the biggest thing with Paul and our D coach, Sly — what they talk about is where you are in our system, how you fit, what your role is, and knowing that it's OK just to do that. We don't ask you to do more. So that's one of the biggest things that I felt once I learned that and understand that that's good enough. And then you don't have to try and be like, 'Oh, I need to be playing more.' It was like, you're right where we needed to be.'
After the Panthers won their third straight conference title late last month, Matthew Tkachuk came to the podium in Raleigh and without prompting credited the Panthers' new guys — players like Schmidt, Marchand, Jones, Tomas Nosek and A.J. Greer — for providing that extra hunger needed to a roster that largely was part of last year's championship.
Maurice couldn't have agreed more, saying, 'Toward the end, they became our identity. They were closer to our identity game than the guys who had been here for a couple of years, and they got us back in that Toronto series. So the different dynamic is when you come into our team after Vegas, you're coming in to help push them over the top. But when you come into our team this summer, you don't want to screw things up.'
Maurice said in some ways, players like Schmidt are the drivers now because they have such a desire to help their new teammates repeat and, in most cases, other than Marchand, win the Stanley Cup for the first time themselves.
'You don't want necessarily the entire team back the next year where everybody's reasonably well-fed,' Maurice said. 'You want a few hungry guys in there, too, because they can push you.'
ELITE display of vision from Nate Schmidt 😮‍💨 #StanleyCup
🇺🇸: @NHL_On_TNT & @SportsonMax ➡️ https://t.co/4TuyIATi3T🇨🇦: @Sportsnet or stream on Sportsnet+ ➡️ https://t.co/4KjbdjVctF pic.twitter.com/N28MhkNGFv
— NHL (@NHL) June 5, 2025
Schmidt has gone on long runs before. His first year in Vegas, the Golden Knights made a shocking run to the Stanley Cup Final before losing to his old Capitals. His third year there, they went to the conference final before losing to the Dallas Stars.
But that first year was a blur, he said, and came and went too quickly for him to appreciate it.
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Now? He's trying to cherish every second.
'When you're at that stage of your career, you're thinking, 'Oh, our team's good. We're back here all the time,'' he said. 'But the reality is that it's hard. It's incredibly hard to get back to this stage, and this time I'm just trying to slow it down and enjoy it. Just not knowing if you're ever going to get a chance again or be in a position or on a team again that's going to have a chance to do that.
'This is the pinnacle of our sport and to be able to be here at the end is special, and it's fun to be a part of. You just never know.'