After winning their first Stanley Cup Final during a seven-game series with the Edmonton Oilers, the Florida Panthers are looking towards the future to secure another championship.
Panthers head coach Paul Maurice and several players spoke at Baptist Health IcePlex, located at 800 NE 8th St., Wednesday morning ahead of their preseason game against Nashville.
“There’s a thousand of those events in a two-month period where it could have gone either way for you, so you just want to make sure that mentally you’re in a position to allow good things to happen, but if something negative happens to us this year, it’s not going to be the end of the world, but it will be perceived as it is,” said Maurice.
It has been a whirlwind for the Panthers since they faced the Oilers during Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, where they beat the Oilers 2-1 at the Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise.
Following their victory, large celebrations were held throughout Fort Lauderdale.
Only eight teams in NHL history have won back-to-back Cups, and the team knows they will have a target on their back as their season begins.
“It’s an incredible challenge to repeat but all we can do to create that opportunity is not start trying to win the Stanley Cup tomorrow,” Maurice said. “We got day one. It’s got to be a certain level of hard and we got to get to that level.”
“Well into this season to the training camp, the biggest things for us is to get together, start to build a chemistry and work and help each other, support each other, so that’s the challenge for us and it’s not about what’s around us, it’s more what’s inside of us,” said Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.
The Panthers will spend three days at training camp this week and the preseason starts on Sunday with two games against Nashville.
The first game starts a 2 p.m. followed by a 6 p.m. game at Amerant Bank Arena.