Dave Hyde: An unforgettable season (and a fourth line against Toronto) to cherish forever

Dave Hyde, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Jun 25, 2025

Published in Hockey

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Paul Maurice’s final decision of an unforgettable season that lasts forever now shouldn’t be lost amid the champagne and cigar smoke. Because the decision was as amazing as this rare run. The Florida Panthers coach stood behind the bench and hoarsely called to his fourth line as the noise started uncork in Amerant Bank Arena during the deciding Game 6.

“I’m going to get you out there,” he said. “I want you three f—ing guys on the ice for the last shift … Because we’re down 2-0 against Toronto and you f—ers got us here.”

The point isn’t just Maurice was saluting how this was a complete team, even a dream team, by keeping his stars on the bench and sending career grunts like Tomas Nosek, A.J. Greer and Johan Gadjovich on the ice to start the Stanley Cup celebration as time ticked down on June 17 in Sunrise, Fla.

The point is to appreciate is how precious winning a title is, how fickle and random it all can seem when you think back to that night against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It’s why this second Stanley Cup should be held tightly and celebrated endlessly.

Winning a title is rare. But two straight? Yes, loudly take that Stanley Cup to the beach again, into the nightclubs again, to the neighbor’s house at 5 a.m. again and all down a parade that somehow topped last year’s parade.

Maurice knows. He’s a hockey lifer, an old-school tough guy underneath the good suit and better jokes. He spent 29 years coaching the other side, the losing side, the one that always gets a bad bounce or suffers unfortunate injury or, in this case, got a fourth-line that began banging Toronto relentlessly while down 2-0 in the second-round series and two goals in Game 3.

“They got us back to our game, to our identity,” Maurice said. “That’s something not to forget.”

Maurice introduced a phrase for such defining moment in a game. “An inflection point,” he called it. The Panthers found their way against Toronto, rallied to send that game into overtime and won when Brad Marchand scored on a breakaway in his first defining Panthers moment.

Suddenly, the Panthers were back in the series, trailing two games to one. Suddenly, they re-found the disciplined game they rode the rest of the way with a dozen more good inflection points.

“It can be that close, this game,” Maurice said.

Ask Marchand. He was on the other end of a Panthers inflection point two years ago. Another overtime breakaway. He could’ve won the first-round series for the Boston Bruins with a goal. These Panthers might then have never become who they are if they go into that offseason right there.

Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky stopped Marchand right there, the Panthers rallied from down three games to beat Boston and they’ve been on their merry way that’s just grown merrier ever since. They lost in the final that season. There then was no better team in hockey than the Panthers the following year, their first championship season of 2023-24.

But this year’s team was appreciably better. It wasn’t even close, really.

“We’re deeper, more confident,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “Winning it once, we knew what it takes. So we’re better that way. Then to add talent like (Marchand and Seth Jones) like we did, that’s not something that happens too often.”

That night the fourth-line saved the Panthers was as close as it got this spring. Think of it. The Panthers beat a tough Tampa Bay Lightning in five games and won three of the final four against Toronto, the only series that went seven games.

The Carolina Hurricanes waited two years for this Eastern Conference final rematch and went down in five games.

The Edmonton Oilers likewise waited a year for this Cup Final rematch. It seemed close, even historic, after four games — three of which were decided in overtime. It was being called a historically great final at that point. But look at it now, in retrospect. Edmonton won two overtime games. The Panthers won an overtime game and the other three games by a 16-4 margin.

There’s a clip from Maurice in another series shouting from behind the bench, “Wear them down so they have nothing left in Game 7.” The Panthers didn’t need a Game 7 against Edmonton again this year. They led the playoffs with the most goals per game and least goals given up per game. That tells you how dominant the Panthers were this second time around.

Maurice waited nearly three decades as an NHL coach for his first championship.

He waited less than 12 months for a second.

“There’s a different feeling to it,” he said of the second Cup. “Last year was a dream. It was a dream come true. It was euphoric. This one was an achievement. It was hard. It was hard all year. It was hard at camp. It never got easy.

“There were so many places if we had broken at that point, or failed, we would’ve understood. ‘We did our best, we couldn’t get it done.’ We never let that happen.”

That, and a good fourth-line stand against Toronto, was the difference between wondering what happened and cherishing what did happen in a way that will go on forever.

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