‘96 Cup finalist Panthers enjoying this playoff run, explain this team’s success

As the Panthers celebrated a sixth consecutive playoff victory and rats cascaded down at FLA Live Arena on Sunday night, glorious memories came flooding back for the players on the last Panthers team to experience this much postseason winning.

“I was jumping around so much that I didn’t see the ice at first; then I got a glimpse of it,” said Ed Jovanovski, a rookie defensive pillar on that 1996 Panthers team that advanced to the Stanley Cup Finals and launched the tradition of fans tossing toy rats on the ice.

“It’s unbelievable,” Jovanovski, now a Panthers TV studio analyst for Bally Sports, said Monday morning. “It’s our first playoff overtime win since Dave Lowry.“

That Lowry goal — against Philadelphia in the 1996 Eastern Conference semifinals — is one of those frozen-in-time memories from the last Panthers playoff run that felt anything like this one.

That was a different era and a different building (Miami Arena).

But this team — up 3-0 on Toronto in their second round series — is the first Panthers team to win at least seven playoff games since that exhilarating 1996 run, which ended with a four-game loss to Colorado in the Stanley Cup Finals.

This is also the first Panthers team to galvanize the fan base — and spawn as much hope — as that one did.

“This team is far more superior in talent to the ‘96 team,” Jovanovski said, in spite of these Panthers barely making the playoffs as an eighth seed and the ‘96 team qualifying as a fourth seed.

“The biggest similarity is how close they are as team. That’s one thing we had with our group.. You can compare [Sergei Bobrovsky] to John Vanbiesbrouck.”

He said both teams didn’t rely only on a few top players: “You have your bottom-six guys not getting scored on and contributing and playing the right way. We had Mike Hough, Brian Skruland, Tommy Fitzgerald, Stu Barnes.”

Barnes — speaking by phone on Monday from Kennewick, Washington, where he’s the head coach of the Western Hockey League’s Tri City Americans — said “it’s someone new every night with this team. That’s a big reason why we had success, too. Everybody did their part and that’s the same here.”

Panthers radio analyst Bill Lindsay, another popular member of that 1996 team, cited another similarity Monday: “One thing I’m really starting to see is the heart. How much guts and fortitude do you have? That can’t be measured in analytics.

“For this team, Game 7 against Boston is where it turned. You knock off the giants and you’re on this emotional roller coaster and have one day of rest. Then you see [Matthew] Tkachuck and Sam Bennett in the opening period of Game 1 in Toronto; they came out like they were ending a seven-game series. That’s a different level of intensity that I haven’t seen.

“We had that fire and work ethic in ‘96, but there’s no question there’s more talent in this team. You’ve got to pay such a heavy price, work, sacrifice and this team has got that.”

Jovanovski and Lindsay agree that Panthers general manager Bill Zito made the right move by changing the look and style of a team that had the league’s best regular season record in 2021-22 to a more physical group that’s better constructed for playoff success.

“You see Toronto is a run-and-gun team; they like chances off the rush,” Lindsay said. “That was us last year. The easiest thing to slow down or negate in the playoffs is speed. You can take that out of teams’ games if you’re willing. You have to get to a team heavy on the forecheck and wear down opponents. The Panthers’ system got there toward the end of the year.

“We got so much better in the neutral zone, protecting the middle of the ice to help insulate our goaltenders. That’s a major reason why you’ve seen Sergei take over.

“It was a gutsy trade for Tkachuk; it’s hard to part ways with someone like [Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar]. But to bring in someone like Tkachuk at [25] instead of [29] for Huberdeau, it makes a lot of sense.”

Jovanovski put it this way: “I said from Day 1 that when there is not success in the playoffs, you have to look to make moves. Obviously, [the Huberdeau trade] wasn’t a popular one at the time. You look at the way Tkachuk plays. Even if he’s not doing something on offense, he is still in guys’ faces, still will chop you. And he’s built for these moments. He’s going to have his imprint on the game one way or another.

“In the playoffs, the ice shrinks, space gets smaller and you have to dig and scratch and fight and claw and punch guys, whatever it takes to move around and get free. He’s willing to do that.

“We had to play a brand of hockey that is going to be conducive to playoff hockey. It’s kind of that boring style. But I know that personally that wins in the playoffs. They’ve played really good hockey since January.”

All three ‘96 alums who were contacted Monday share their appreciation for Tkachuk.

Barnes calls him a top-five player in the league, factoring in his elite skill level, goal scoring and ability to “bring something every team wants — someone that wills a team to win. He has taken it to another level.”

Beyond the Tkachuk blockbuster, each rattles off a string of Zito moves have paid dividends. Most under the radar of those?

Lindsay: “Getting [defenseman] Gustav Forsling [off waivers from Carolina in 2021] stood out to me. That’s off-the-wall good. Signing Nick Cousins [last offseason]; a depth guy who can play up and down your lineup… Brandon Montour can’t do the stuff he does without Marc Staal as his partner.

“Getting Josh Mahura [off waivers last October]; you know exactly what you’re going to get — a real solid 12 to 15 minutes a night.” And Lindsay credits Zito for signing goaltender Alex Lyon, whose late-season play was integral in making the playoffs.

Barnes cites Cousins, who “has done a really good job playing in an elevated role.”

Jovanovski’s favorite under-the-radar moves? “Forsling doesn’t get the hype that other guys were getting; he’s one of the five most underrated players in the league. He plays against top lines, has a cannon of a shot. You can look at him and say the guy didn’t make one mistake and he can go months like that.

“And Montour — what is there not to like about him? He’s top five to top 10 in the league as far as defensemen the way he skates, the way his offensive instincts are in the zone.”

And, oh yes, “Carter Verhaeghe. Are you kidding me? They grabbed him out of nowhere,” Jovanovski marvels. He’s 14th in playoff scoring with 10 points, none bigger than his Game 7 overtime winner in Boston.

Jovanovski credits Aaron Ekblad for “sacrificing a little bit of his offense to focus on playing solid defense. He has been dynamite the last couple of weeks.”

Lindsay notes that Bobrovsky’s postseason play (6-1, .909 save percentage) epitomizes “what playoff hockey does. You can have three mediocre years on a big contract. If they go on to win the Stanley Cup and he plays at this level, the contract becomes worth it. You can validate a $70 million contract with two months of good hockey.”

They also credit coach Paul Maurice.

“Changing the system, to get a heavy grind-it-out forecheck, he’s done a masterful job,” Lindsay said.

Maurice’s experience “helps,” Jovanovski said. “He’s so well spoken, and there’s never panic with him.”

For Lindsay, this era of Panthers hockey feels like something of a turning point, after years lost in the wilderness.

“For our fan base and all the struggles we’ve had, it’s nice to see us doing this,” Lindsay said. “We have good ownership from [Vincent] Viola and we spend money. [Success] has been so sporadic before.”

Barnes said: “Even years coming back as a player and as coach, even when the building wasn’t full, I knew there was a hockey market and it would be successful here. It would take everything coming together. And it has. It’s exciting to see the rats coming down again.”