Panthers embrace identity as NHL's ultimate road warriors: ‘Us against the world'

New York Times

11 hours ago

EDMONTON — A couple of years ago at an NHL GMs meeting, Ken Holland brought up a rather interesting idea.
He wondered about giving the higher seed the option to open a playoff series on the road. In that scenario, the higher seed would play on the road in Games 1-2 and 6, and be at home in Games 3-4-5 and 7.
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The Florida Panthers would probably support it if the league ever put it up for a vote. They love opening series on the road, and that would guarantee it for them either way, as a top seed or lower seed.
How could they not embrace it? Their thrilling 5-4 win in double overtime Friday night at Rogers Place improved their playoff road record to 24-11 since the start of the 2023 playoffs. I mean, seriously.
They have been the ultimate playoff road warriors, going 8-4 in '23, 7-4 in '24 and now 9-3 so far in the '25 playoffs, one shy of the all-time NHL record for road wins in a playoff year, handing the Oilers only their second home loss of the playoffs.
It's what the Panthers do.
'Our game travels,'' Panthers blueliner Seth Jones said after playing a team-high 34:35 Friday night. 'We don't change our game based off where we're playing. Obviously it's great to play at home in front of our fans and feel that energy and feel that momentum at times. We play the same way in front of them (as on the road).
'We want to play a simple game, (a) north-south game. And just try to make their life difficult.''
They went 3-0 in Tampa in the opening round, 2-2 in Toronto in the second round, including twin 6-1 routs at Scotiabank Arena in Games 5 and 7, and of course went 3-0 in Carolina in the Eastern Conference final.
So if you think for a moment that not having home-ice advantage in the Stanley Cup final against the Oilers concerned the defending champs one bit, get real.
And if you think they were rattled after coughing up a 3-1 lead in Game 1 and losing, think again.
These guys arrived at the rink on Friday fully convinced and confident they would tie the series 1-1.
They did, but it sure wasn't without drama. Corey Perry scored with 17.8 seconds left in the third period, forcing overtime, and Rogers Place erupted. It was the kind of stunning moment that could deflate and derail many teams on this stage.
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Not the Panthers. They re-grouped. They found a way in overtime.
'To get this point, you have to be resilient, and be able to bounce back, and both these teams do that,'' double-OT hero Marchand said postgame.
And again, they found a way on the road.
'We've been great on the road all playoffs long,'' Conn Smythe Trophy candidate Sam Bennett said postgame. 'We're a confident group on the road. We enjoy being on the road, we enjoy being together, you get to spend more time together, dinners together, in the lounge together all night. And it really just brings our group together.
'And I think that's part of the reason we're having so much success on the road.''
Consider other road warrior facts:
• The Panthers are the first team in NHL history to eclipse 50 goals in a single playoff season.
• Bennett scored his 12th road goal of these playoffs Friday night, breaking the Stanley Cup playoff record for most road goals in one playoff year, previously held by Mark Scheifele in 2018.
• The Panthers have a league-best 41 percent success rate on the road for their power play, 14 for 34 after Friday night with the man advantage, opening the scoring in Game 2 with a power-play goal from Bennett.
They love the road.
'We have no choice,'' said Panthers star winger Matthew Tkachuk, pointing to the fact they've started every series on the road in these playoffs as the lower seed. 'We knew we were going to be on the road for the rest of it. We forced ourselves (into) it. … We feel comfortable on the road. It's a simple game. It's a hard game. It's an adversity-type of game, an adversity-type of atmosphere. We've said it a bunch. It's that us against the world mindset, but you really feel it especially being down in a series. Your back's not necessarily against the wall, but you treat it as a big-time must-win in a hostile environment, and I feel like that's when we're at our best. So, hopefully we can use that to our advantage.'
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Of course, Holland's idea wouldn't have helped the Panthers this year, because as Tkachuk pointed out, they've opened all four playoff series on the road already as underdogs. But perhaps it's Florida's opponents during this three-year run that might have taken the option as per Holland's format tweak just to take away Florida's ability to steal early series momentum as they now have against Tampa Bay, Carolina and perhaps against Edmonton after getting the split and heading home for Games 3-4 of the Cup final.
What is it about the makeup of the Panthers that makes them so comfortable on the road? I asked Panthers head coach Paul Maurice that question earlier in these playoffs.
'We are not a team that is a heavy match team,'' he said. 'It has a lot to do with it. We don't have to come out of our rhythm of the game when we go on the road. I don't pull lines off the ice. We have a general thing we want with our forward matchup and a more specific D match. That would be true of most teams, I think.
'There is not a big change for us in what we do,'' he continued. 'We haven't, in the past, relied on feeling good to win. We don't have to snap it around. We will talk about our execution twice a year. We don't need it to be pretty or beautiful on the road. Our style suits that kind of game.''
They're a physical, abrasive team that is scared of no one. That game travels well on the road. That's the on-ice part. But as Bennett said earlier, the off-ice part explains just as much, too. The Panthers are as tight-knit as any team in the league. That's actually one of the most difficult challenges of modern-day NHL teams: organically seeing players wanting to hang out as a group. These aren't the old days where team bonding means going on a bender on an off-night.
But every story I hear is how the Panthers love hanging out together, and it happens more naturally on the road. That's no small thing. There's a real brotherhood on the defending champs. And I think it also helps explain their road prowess over the last three years.
They'll probably need that again to win another Cup. This series is going long. No one's running the table here.
If this goes the max, Florida will need to find their ultimate road game come June 20.