Throughout the year, the Sip Advisor will alphabetically travel the National Hockey League (NHL), discovering the best and worst each team has to offer in a variety of subjects. We will also feature a drink based off the franchise. Today, we make our way to the Sunshine State to learn about the Florida Panthers and their ratty history:
Establishment Story: The Panthers joined the NHL as an expansion team in 1993, along with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The franchise’s original owner was Wayne Huizenga of Blockbuster Video, who also founded Major League Baseball’s Florida Marlins and owned a share of the National Football League’s Miami Dolphins. Panthers was chosen as the team’s nickname because the big cat is an endangered species of the Florida Everglades area.
Stanley Cups: The Panthers have no Stanley Cups to their name. Twice in their history, they have made Cinderella runs to the Stanley Cup Finals, only to be swept by the Colorado Avalanche in 1996 and defeated in five games by the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023. Florida won their first Presidents’ Trophy in 2022, given to the team who finishes the regular season with the best overall record.
Celebrity Fan: Musician Ariana Grande has been a fan of the Panthers since childhood, when she attended games with her father. Grande even sang the U.S. National Anthem prior to a Florida game when she was only eight years old. Apparently, Grande was twice hit with pucks at Panthers games as a kid. She was also photographed by a newspaper riding the Zamboni at a game when she was five.
Super Fan: Matt Fagan, known as x-Superfan on Twitter, has been a Panthers supporter since the earliest days of the franchise and a season ticket holder since 2000, where he can be easily recognized by the red cape he wears to games. When the team is on the road, he watches from his viewing room, dubbed the Panther Den. Fagan was named the Panthers first 7th Man honouree in 2003.
Mascot: The Panthers have a rare pair of costumed crowd pleasers with Stanley C. Panther and Viktor E. Rat. Stanley C. is named as a reference to the Stanley Cup and debuted with the rest of the team in 1993. Victor E. is a play on the word victory, with the rodent joining the franchise in 2014. While the two mascots differ on most subjects, one thing they agree on is their affection for the movie Slapshot.
Tradition: Prior to the Panthers opening game of the 1995-96 season, a rat scurried across the team’s dressing room, before it was killed by forward Scott Mellanby. That night, Mellanby scored two goals in a winning effort. Goalie John Vanbiesbrouck called the performance a Rat Trick, playing off the hat trick hockey feat. That season, the team’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals featured thousands of toy rats rained onto the ice after each goal.
Appearances in Media: It ain’t much, but in the 2010 film Tooth Fairy, starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, the Panthers are the opposing team when Johnson’s character finally makes the NHL as a member of the Los Angeles Kings. Not only that, but Johnson scores a goal against the Panthers. Other than that, I can’t find any other popular culture appearances for the franchise.
Events/Scandals: While the Chicago Blackhawks sex assault scandal was emerging in 2021, Joel Quenneville was coach of the Panthers. He was the coach of the Blackhawks at the time of the 2010 assault and was cited as being vocal about keeping the incident quiet. Quenneville, who had led the Panthers to a perfect 7-0-0 record to start the season, was forced to resign from his post and has remained outside the NHL since.
Rivalry: The Battle of Florida, between the Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning, has always existed, but it’s heated up in the last couple seasons, as the Lightning made three straight Stanley Cup Finals from 2020-2022, winning two championships in that time, while the Panthers have risen to the top of the league and become top contenders. At times, the team that wins the season series has received a trophy with varying names.
Tragedy: The 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida didn’t directly affect members of the Panthers, but it shook the entire community. Members of the organization lived in Parkland and the team’s practice facility is located nearby. At the Panthers next home contest, a pre-game memorial was held for the 17 victims, capped by goalie Roberto Luongo delivering an emotional speech.
Player Nicknames: When center Noel Acciari joined the Panthers for the 2019-20 season, he was dismayed to learn there were no cookies offered as part of the team’s pre-game meal catering. The nickname ‘Cookie’ was then bestowed upon him by teammate Keith Yandle. Acciari got in on the new moniker, dressing as the Cookie Monster for the team’s Halloween party, while his wife went as a cookie.
Line: One of the Panthers greatest lines in franchise history was dubbed the Russian Line. The unit saw Canadian Ray Whitney (who had been nicknamed Ray Whitney-ov during his time playing with Igor Larionov and Sergei Makarov with the San Jose Sharks) along with Russians Viktor Kozlov and Pavel Bure. The trio was formed for the 1999-2000 campaign, with each player enjoying their best offensive outputs with the Panthers. Bure even earned a Hart Trophy nomination for his season.
Captain: Aleksander Barkov was named captain of the Panthers prior to the 2018-19 season, leading them through the most successful stretch in the franchise’s history. The Panthers have made the playoffs in four of Barkov’s five campaign’s at the helm and won their only Presidents’ Trophy during his reign. Barkov is signed to the Panthers through the 2029-30 season, so he should lead the club for some time to come.
Enforcer: Paul Laus came to Florida in the 1993 Expansion Draft, making his NHL debut that season. Laus would play the rest of his career with the Panthers, racking up a franchise record 1,702 penalty minutes. The cult favourite even co-captained the team for a season. In 1996-97, Laus set an NHL record with 39 fighting majors in 77 games. He was also the last original member of the Panthers, before retiring in 2002.
Family Values: For what would be Pavel Bure’s final season (2001-02) with the Panthers, the team brought in his younger brother Valeri. Unfortunately, both siblings suffered various injuries, limiting how much they got to play together. During the same season, brothers Jeff and Brad Norton also played parts of the year with the Panthers. For the 2022-23 campaign, brothers Eric and Marc Staal played for Florida.
Returning Players: Perhaps the greatest player in franchise history, Roberto Luongo returned to the Panthers after his stint with the Vancouver Canucks. Luongo first joined the Panthers in 2000-01, a mere 24 games into his NHL career. He would play the next five seasons with the team, growing into one of the best goalies in the league. Luongo would return at the 2014 trade deadline, before retiring as a member of the Panthers in 2019.
Short Stint: Two of the three pieces dealt to Florida from Vancouver, in exchange for Roberto Luongo, lasted only one season with the team. Todd Bertuzzi played a mere seven games with the Panthers, following surgery on a herniated disc, before being dealt to the Detroit Red Wings at the 2007 trade deadline. Meanwhile, Alex Auld was supposed to replace Luongo as Florida’s starting goalie, but lost the job to Ed Belfour and left the club following 27 games.
Undrafted: Defenseman Dan Boyle signed with the Panthers in March 1998, following four years of college hockey. After working his way through Florida’s developmental system, Boyle was traded to the Tampa Bay Lightning, where he would be a key component of their 2004 Stanley Cup championship. Boyle finished his career with 1,093 games played and an Olympic gold medal with Canada in 2010.
Trade: The best and worst trades in Panthers history all revolve around goaltender Roberto Luongo. Both times the team icon was brought to Florida (2000 and 2014) are among the best swaps the organization ever made, while his 2006 exit from the Panthers did little to improve the team’s fortunes. Other notable deals include the acquisition of franchise players such as Pavel Bure and Matthew Tkachuk.
Signing: The Panthers 2023 Stanley Cup Finals run did much to repair goalie Sergei Bobrovsky’s popularity in Florida, but prior to this, the seven-year, $70 million contract he signed in 2019 was much derided, as the highest paid active NHL netminder had lost the top job to other goalies. Another bad signing was Dave Bolland at $27.5 million over five years. Bolland played two injury-plagued seasons before being forced to retire.
Draft Pick: Over a four-year span, the Panthers built a team core that propelled them to their early 2020s success, selecting Jonathan Huberdeau (3rd overall in 2011), Aleksander Barkov (2nd overall in 2013) and Aaron Ekblad (1st overall in 2014). Another first overall pick for the franchise was Ed Jovanovski in 1994. Jovanovski would later be used as part of the package to bring Pavel Bure to Florida, returning to the franchise for the final three seasons of his career.
Holdouts: Upon being acquired from the Calgary Flames in the 2001 off-season, Valeri Bure was in need of a new contract. He was coming off a season of 27 goals and 55 points and had tallied career highs of 35 goals and 75 points the year before that. The team and player couldn’t agree on a new deal, causing Bure to sit out the start of Florida’s training camp, before finally signing a pact.
Buyouts: The biggest buyout in Panthers history was the $4.96 million payment to Keith Yandle, to get out of the final two seasons of the seven-year, $44.45 deal he signed with the team in 2016. Yandle was chasing the NHL iron man record at the time of his release, only 42 games behind Doug Jarvis, who had held the streak record since 1986. Yandle signed with the Philadelphia Flyers for the 2021-22 campaign, passing Jarvis on January 25, 2022, and retiring at the end of that season.
Unique Game: On September 23, 2006, the NHL presented a pre-season game in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The contest – the first ever NHL tilt played in the Caribbean – pitted the Panthers against the New York Rangers, with the Rangers winning 3-2. Tickets to the game sold poorly, with only about 5,000 people (many of them children bused in from housing projects to fill seats) turning out to the 18,500-seat Jose Miguel Agrelot Coliseum.
Goal: Matthew Tkachuk scored a number of clutch goals during the Panthers 2023 playoff run. Perhaps most notable was his winner in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals, in the fourth overtime period, the sixth longest game in NHL history. Tkachuk would also score the winning goal in Game 4 of that series with mere second remaining in regulation, sending Florida to the finals.
Fight/Brawl: With fighting increasingly disappearing from the NHL, it was a throwback of sorts to see Alex Petrovic of the Panthers and Evander Kane of the Buffalo Sabres battle three times during one February 2016 game. The combatants dropped the gloves twice in the second period and once more in the third. Following that final tilt, both players were ejected from the game, which Florida won 7-4.
Injury: On February 10, 2008, Panthers captain Olli Jokinen lost his balance behind the Buffalo Sabres net. This resulted in his skate coming up and cutting the common carotid artery of teammate Richard Zednik. Zednik quickly left the ice and was treated by paramedics and the Sabres team doctor, before being transported to hospital. Zednik missed the rest of the season recovering, but returned for the following campaign.
Penalty: The Rat Trick tradition has stood the test of time, still being utilized by Panthers fans to this day. However, when fans celebrated the 20th anniversary of the event in 2016, littering the ice with rubber rats when the home team scored, Florida was twice assessed delay of game penalties. The Panthers still managed to win the contest 3-2, but players were frustrated that fan behaviour could cost them.
Wildest Story: The Panthers have endured a fair bit of dysfunction during their 30-year history. Imagine how much crazier things would have been if Donald Trump were the team’s owner. This almost happened in the late 1990s, when Wayne Huizenga looked to sell the franchise and the Trump Organization made inquiries. In the end, team president Bill Torrey was tasked with finding local ownership for any deal.
Blooper: After being scored on during a November 2009 game, defenseman Keith Ballard looked to take his frustration out on the goal post. Except when Ballard swung his stick, he accidentally hit his own goalie Tomas Vokoun in the head instead. Vokoun had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher and a cut on his ear required stitches to repair. Ballard apologized profusely and Vokoun later laughed off the incident.
Miscellaneous: Disgraced actor Kevin Spacey was once associated with the Panthers. During the 2015-16 season, the MVP of the game for Florida was given a hoodie that featured Spacey’s head floating in space. The team also sold the shirts at home games, donating the proceeds to charity. Spacey acknowledged the tradition and appeared at a game donning the hoodie. This all took place before Spacey was accused of sexual misconduct in October 2017.
Florida Panthers: Florida Panther
- 1 oz Tequila
- 1 oz Orange Vodka
- 1 oz Melon Liqueur
- Top with Lemon-Lime Soda
- Dash of Grenadine
- Garnish with a Maraschino Cherry
While this cocktail is more for the animal than the hockey team, I thought I’d give it a try. Another cocktail that caught my eye was the Rumberto. Named after Roberto Luongo, the drink is a basic rum and cola recipe, which was served at all FLA Live Arena bars for Luongo’s jersey retirement in March 2020.
Sip Advisor 