Are the hunted Panthers finally losing their grip on their mini dynasty?
What makes a great heel? They inspire hate in the opposition, but it’s more than that. A great heel does it with flair and creativity, evoking such strong reactions that the crowd pop explodes into a crescendo when the Big Bad finally gets their comeuppance.
The Florida Panthers are the greatest collection of hockey heels in a generation. They squeeze every last drop of lemon juice into every wound. They’ve made three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals. They’ve won two consecutive Stanley Cups. They partied for what felt like a month after winning last June, and instead of that bender serving as a farewell tour, they relied on a lack of state income tax and some salary-cap wizardry to bring back pretty much their entire group, from Aaron Ekblad to Sam Bennett to Brad Marchand.
And the Panthers troll. My god, they troll like no one else. Legend-grade pest Marchand was at his artful best when the Panthers rolled into Toronto to face the Maple Leafs Tuesday, pushing not one but two hot buttons, first by teasing that he almost signed with the Leafs last summer, then claiming the fans ran Mitch Marner out of Toronto.
The Panthers are the living embodiment of the Jesse Pinkman “He can’t keep getting away with this!” GIF, the perfect collection of villains for the sport.
But how long can they survive as the hunted? Is there reason to believe the borderline dynastic run ends this season?
The juju seemed to be against them before 2025-26 even began, with captain and future Hall of Famer Aleksander Barkov suffering a torn ACL and MCL in the team’s first practice of training camp. And that was while superstar right winger Matthew Tkachuk was out to start the year after tearing his adductor off the bone during the Nations 4 Face-Off and limping through the 2025-26 postseason. To survive, the Panthers would need elevated performances from the likes of youngster Anton Lundell and wily vet Marchand, who excelled as third-liners last postseason but would have to play higher in the lineup.
The Panthers survived well enough heading into January. Defenseman Seth Jones continued to form such a solid second pair with Niko Mikkola that Jones, in the midst of a major career revival since the Panthers traded for him last year, earned a spot on the U.S. Olympic team for 2026. Lundell, whose disciplined all-around game and Finnish heritage earned him the ‘Bay Barkov’ moniker years back, was experiencing the breakout everyone expected him to. The future Hall of Famer Marchand scored at a 46-goal, 92-point pace in the first half of the season.
But the tests keep coming for this Panthers team everyone wants to beat so badly. Jones sustained an upper-body injury last week that will keep him out for most of January. Marchand labored after taking a hit from Bobby McMann during the Panthers’ 4-1 loss to the Leafs Tuesday, and Panthers head coach Paul Maurice pulled Marchand from the lineup for the third period as a precaution because Marchand was already playing through a mystery ailment.
The Panthers have stayed afloat with a .560 points percentage so far this season, but they sit outside the playoff picture in a parity-laden Eastern Conference. Maurice, who is proud of how his team has handled the adversity this season, worries they’re approaching a critical mass of missing players, with depth forwards Tomas Nosek and Jonah Gadjovich and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov also sidelined.
“We have a standard, some nights we meet it, sometimes we fall a little short…but for the most part, with all that we’ve gone through, I’m really happy with what they’ve been able to do, stand in the fight,” Maurice told Daily Faceoff. “We’re in a hell of a lot better shape than we were in January three years ago and still found a way to get to the Final. But that means nothing, because that was three years ago. So we’re on that dangerous ground of injury. That number creeps to seven and eight and nine, you’ve got a problem. But we’re going to stay in the fight. That’s all you can ask for.”
Maurice is referring, of course, to the 2022-23 campaign in which the Panthers weathered a litany of injuries earlier in the season and barely qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs, edging out the Pittsburgh Penguins by a single point. Those Panthers were somewhat of a sleeper because they were better than their record indicated, and they proved to be a nightmare for the record-setting, 65-win Boston Bruins, upsetting them in Game 7 of the first round. Riding a breathtakingly good run from goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, the Panthers crusaded to the Final as a No. 8 seed before falling to the Vegas Golden Knights.
So are there parallels between the 2022-23 team and this one? Yes and no. Like the former, the latter group is better than its merely decent record indicates. It will soon get Tkachuk back, and Jones should return in a few weeks. At the same time: whereas the 2022-23 Panthers got healthy as a group at the right time, it’s still more likely than not that Barkov doesn’t make it back in time to play this season, despite the fact he’s expressed belief that he can.
Adding another wrinkle for GM Bill Zito to sort through is the playoff salary cap, part of the new collective bargaining agreement beginning next season but fast-tracked into this season. The Panthers, who have just $1.09 million in projected cap space according to PuckPedia, can’t necessarily load up at the Trade Deadline on veteran pieces with plans to parachute Barkov into their lineup off LTIR just as they did Tkachuk last year, because teams will have to dress lineups compliant with the cap in the postseason. Florida’s Cup-clinching lineup in Game 6 against the Edmonton Oilers last season exceeded the cap by an estimated $5 million. That will never happen again.
It becomes more challenging to stay on top every season, and between the cap rule changes and injuries, 2025-26 is Florida’s toughest trial yet. At the same time: despite having to survive without key personnel, the Panthers are mostly playing the same. Here’s a snapshot of their 5-on-5 play through 42 games in each season of the Maurice era:
| Season | Record | 5v5 xGF/60 | 5v5 xGF/60 | 5v5 SH% | 5v5 SV% |
| 2022-23 | 19-19-4 | 3.02 | 2.59 | 8.37 | .915 |
| 2023-24 | 27-13-2 | 2.85 | 2.34 | 7.29 | .924 |
| 2024-25 | 25-15-2 | 2.56 | 2.18 | 8.24 | .905 |
| 2025-26 | 22-17-3 | 2.79 | 2.63 | 9.45 | .897 |
The Panthers are driving the offensive play better than they did last season. They’re finishing more chances at 5-on-5, too. But their power play has struggled, and they’re not getting nearly as many saves from Bobrovsky, which is why they average the 17th-most goals per game and allow the 11th-most. While Tkachuk’s return will augment the power play, and the reliable ‘Bob’ could get hot any time now, the most concerning change is the decline of Florida’s 5-on-5 defense, which was inevitable with three-time Selke Trophy winner Barkov out.
The Panthers, then, aren’t quite what they were, especially if Barkov can’t make it back for April. But they seem to feed off doubt, Zito finds a way to dig out of cap conundrums as well as any GM in the game, and they still ice a lineup of mentally strong, back-to-back Cup champions most nights.
“We’re battling out there,” left winger Carter Verhaeghe told Daily Faceoff. “We’ve battled a lot of injuries coming off two straight Stanley Cup Finals, so it’s tough, but we’re only going to be stronger for it.”
The Panthers are wounded, no doubt. But it would be all too fitting for them to slip into the playoffs as one of the most overqualified No. 8 seeds in NHL history and give the top team absolute fits, just like they did three years ago. It would make for yet another perfect heel storyline.
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