The Florida Panthers Have Proven You Don't Need To Build A Team Through The Draft To Win A Championship, Your Favorite GM Is Just A Coward
Icon Sportswire. Getty Images.You look back at some other Cup Champions over the years. The Pittsburgh Penguins with Crosby, Malkin and Letang. The Chicago Blackhawks with Kane, Toews, and Keith. The Los Angeles Kings with Kopitar, Brown, and Quick. The Tampa Bay Lightning with Stamkos, Kucherov, Hedman, and Vasilevskiy. The Colorado Avalanche with MacKinnon, Makar, and Landeskog.
It was easy to look at the best teams in the league over the past 2 decades and see the blue print. Build your team by drafting elite talent, and then just find the right pieces to support them. It's led to a culture in the NHL where there are almost never any massive trades, or high end players making it to free agency. GMs have become paralyzed by cowardice over the last couple decades because they feel it's safer to build a team through the draft than to go out there and make any big splashes to acquire players.
And then in come the Florida Panthers. They are now back-to-back Stanley Cup Champions. They just played in their 3rd straight Cup Finals. They are as close to being considered a dynasty as possible. And when you look at the team they had on the ice last night, just 20% of them put on a Panthers jersey when they heard their name called on draft night.
Obviously Barkov and Ekblad are two major pieces to this Florida Panthers' core. Ekblad was the 1st overall draft pick to Florida in 2014, and Barkov was the 2nd overall draft pick to Florida in 2013. Just a couple years before, the Panthers drafted Jonathan Huberdeau with the 3rd overall pick in the 2011 Draft.
That right there was the blue print to winning a Stanley Cup. You draft 3 high end players within a few years of each other, and then build around them. But after winning the Presidents Trophy in 2022 just to get swept out of the 2nd round of the playoffs, the Panthers realized the blue print was flawed. Bill Zito realized this team wasn't built to win a Cup. So he goes out and he flips Jonathan Huberdeau for Matthew Tkachuk.
You can make the case the Panthers still built their team through the draft because they needed to draft Huberdeau in order to get Tkachuk. But just look at the cost it took to bring in the rest of the main contributors for the Florida Panthers.
Damn near nothing.
Sam Bennett was a throwaway trade. He just won a Conn Smythe. They are fortunate that the Buffalo Sabres are run as the most incompetent franchise in professional sports, and that they were willing to get rid of Sam Reinhart. He just had 4 goals in a Stanley Cup clinching game. They are fortunate that the Philadelphia Flyers are absolute dipshits and chose not to make Bobrovsky a Flyer for life. He is now a 2x Vezina winner and a 2x Stanley Cup Champ.
Gustav Forsling was picked up off waivers. Brad Marchand was traded for scraps.
Sure, the draft definitely helped the Florida Panthers. They aren't where they are today with Barkov, Ekblad, and having the assets to get Tkachuk. But Bill Zito managed to hit on damn near every big free agency signing, and every big trade he's made over the last few years. He wasn't afraid to pull the trigger on big moves. He wasn't afraid to nuke the core once he realized it wasn't going to work out. He wasn't going to sit around in hockey purgatory for 5 more years until the window was fully shut. The draft helped the Panthers, but there are only 3 players on the team who have only worn a Panthers jersey for their entire career so far. And now they are back-to-back Champs with all the pieces in place to win a 3rd.