In one lucky moment, the camera happened to be pointed at Paul Maurice when Spencer Knight handed him the Stanley Cup.
Maurice momentarily left the interview. He held it above his head, closed his eyes, and uttered the unprintable words:
“I’ve been pursuing it,” the Panthers coach told ESPN. “There’s been a lot of cold-hearted words about how hard it was to get her.”
It’s obviously tempting to talk about this in terms of the Oilers, Connor McDavid’s inability to score in Games 6 and 7, Leon Draiseitel’s inability to score in the series, their inability to come back from a 3-0 deficit.
But what the Panthers accomplished in 60 tense minutes on Monday night at Amerant Bank Arena, winning 2-1 in one of the greatest Game 7s of all time to win the franchise’s first Stanley Cup, is every bit as impressive a feat as what Edmonton ultimately failed to accomplish.
Nothing will be harder for the Panthers to climb out of than the mental predicament they found themselves in after their Game 6 loss. But when the other team has the best player in the world and is staging an upset, it’s easy to get pushed out of the story. That’s what happened to Florida leading up to this game. None of it mattered once the game actually started.
Ten weeks into the postseason, all 38 players on the ice Monday night gave it their all and played well — most of them no doubt doing so despite injuries. This was the best against the best, and the Panthers played with no room for error.
And aside from Mattias Janmark coming onto the ice for a breakaway goal in the first period, it’s hard to find any mistakes Florida actually made.
Florida didn’t have the best player in the series — Conn Smythe Trophy winner McDavid was the best — and arguably didn’t have the best goaltending, either, though Sergei Bobrovsky had an otherworldly third period Monday night.
The Panthers won this series, especially Game 7, because of their tenacity, their physicality, the way they fought for the puck, and the contributions of every single player. They’re not a team without stars — they have a lot of them — but they’re not a top-heavy team.
It was this outstanding quality that got Florida a win over the Rangers in the previous round. It was this outstanding quality that got Florida over the hump in this Cup Final. The highlight of the game was Dmitry Kulikov’s goal-line clearance that led to Sam Reinhart’s 2-1 comeback goal, a play that transformed the third-pairing defenseman into a superstar.
“We’re one of the most unselfish teams I’ve ever seen,” Kyle Okposo told ESPN. “Everybody’s happy for everyone else. Everybody wants everybody to succeed. There are no egos.”
The play that gave Florida the win was the product of individual players on every facet of the roster. With just over seven minutes left in the game, Gustav Forsling dived to knock the puck out of McDavid’s hands after the playoff MVP had the puck low and ready to shoot. Aaron Ekblad then drove a backhand shot over Zach Hyman after the rubber came off McDavid, and Bobrovsky swallowed it.
A few minutes later, third-line winger Etu Ruostarinen saved the Bob by blocking Evan Bouchard with his back to the ground, and Evan Rodriguez, who assisted on the opening goal, wasted valuable time multiple times late in the game by pushing the puck against the wall.
This game was more of a great achievement for the Panthers than a failure for the Oilers.
“People always say I’m just speechless,” Ekblad told Sportsnet. “It’s unbelievable, it’s amazing. Sorry for the foul language, but this is the best moment of my life so far.”
To say that McDavid or Draiseitel disappeared on Monday is technically correct, but it misses something: the passive voice is used.
On Monday, Aleksandar Barkov, along with the pair Ekblad and Forsling, shut down McDavid defensively. The Panthers didn’t match up in the same way against Draisaitl, but they denied the German any room to play during the seven-game stretch and prevented one of the league’s great goal scorers from scoring even once.
It’s a standard the rest of the league, including the Rangers, Devils and Islanders, must now strive to reach. Not that anyone is getting there easily.
McDavid will get another chance, and this loss won’t define him any more than 1983 defined Wayne Gretzky and 2008 defined Sidney Crosby.
Monday wasn’t so much a referendum on him as it was on the Panthers organization, which over the past two days has been staring down the worst collapse in sports history.
“It wasn’t easy after losing three straight games to fall to 3-3,” Bobrovsky told ESPN after his 23-save performance, “but I knew we had to get through it to be true champions.”
The cup they now have is truly well deserved.
