RALEIGH, N.C. — When Nate Schmidt looks around the Florida Panthers’ locker room, he sees players who possess something he doesn’t have. At least not yet.
A Stanley Cup ring.
Most of them won a ring last season when the Panthers hoisted the Cup for the first time in franchise history. Brad Marchand won his as a rookie with the Boston Bruins in 2011. Nico Sturm, another recent addition, won his with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022.
This is something that has given Schmidt some anxiety. He doesn’t want to be the guy without a ring who messes it up for the ones who have one.
“You know what? It’s something that I’ve tried to battle with this year,” said the veteran defenseman, who signed a one-year free agent contract with Florida last summer. “You want to add, right? You want to add as much as you can to an already winning formula.”
Schmidt is one of seven Panthers on the playoff roster who haven’t won the Stanley Cup. It’s a list that includes forwards Jesper Boqvist, A.J. Greer and Tomas Nosek; backup goalie Vitek Vanecek; and defensemen Seth Jones and Jaycob Megna.
Jones is in his 12th NHL season, having played 860 regular-season games since being drafted fourth overall by the Nashville Predators in 2013. Before this run with the Panthers, Jones had appeared in only 37 playoff games with Nashville and Columbus, having never made the postseason during his four seasons with the rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks.
“It was just the timeline with that organization. It’s nothing against them,” Jones said of the Blackhawks. “I think they’re going to be very successful in the future. They just wanted to build from the ground up. Nothing wrong with that.”
The defenseman said that he “wasn’t playing the greatest hockey in Chicago” when he was acquired by Florida on March 1 for a first-round pick and goalie Spencer Knight. He wanted out. He wanted a chance to play important games. Now, they’re all important.
“It’s been a whirlwind the last few months, but I’m extremely happy that I’ve gotten this opportunity with this franchise,” he said.
PANTHERS COACH PAUL MAURICE said that Jones has settled in with Florida because he’s not expected to be a marquee attraction.
“Seth Jones comes into our room and into a place where the camera’s not going to be on him all the time, right? He’s not the big dog on the back end,” Maurice said. “He’s not the highest-paid guy in the room. He’s one of the guys. So, he can just kind of fold into the room.”
Maurice compared the trade for Jones with when the team acquired Marchand from the Bruins in a still-stunning deadline deal. The Panthers had lost some talkative players from last season’s Stanley Cup champions, with defenseman Brandon Montour and forward Ryan Lomberg leaving as free agents. Marchand is, among many other things, a talker.
“Marchand’s personality took some pressure off the rest of the guys. I actually had more quiet guys than we have loud guys. And they’re like, ‘OK, Marchy’s here, he can do all the talking and then we could just relax,”” Maurice said. “Brad took some pressure off these guys. While when Seth came in, I think our team took some pressure off of him.”
Jones said not having won a championship hasn’t added extra pressure to his postseason.
“No, not really. I think this locker room is definitely special,” he said. “The moment I came into this locker room, you could feel the intensity. You can feel the drive and the willingness to win from top to bottom.”
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Brad Marchand’s OT winner sparks pandemonium from Panthers crowd
Brad Marchand scores a massive overtime goal to deliver the Panthers a 5-4 win over the Maple Leafs.
The Panthers pride themselves on their homogeny. There are big names on this roster — Matthew Tkachuk was a guest on “The Tonight Show” after the 4 Nations Face-Off, for reference. Jones and Marchand were NHL All-Stars earlier in their careers. But once they arrived in Sunrise, Florida, the players assimilated into general manager Bill Zito’s Borg Collective of relentless, effective and ravenous competitors — in theory, none more important than the others.
“It’s a family environment, whether you’re the best player on the team or you’re not in the lineup. Everyone’s treated the same way,” Jones said. “We understand that everyone is needed to win. It’s not just on one line, one pair of defensemen. So, it’s a great environment to be in, and we want to keep it going.”
Maurice credits captain Aleksander Barkov with setting that tone.
“I think that’s all Barkov. Truly, if you didn’t know the face and you walked into the locker room or onto the plane, you wouldn’t know who the star was,” he said. “The same goes for Matthew [Tkachuk] and Brad [Marchand]. They’re one of the guys in the room.”
IT HAS BEEN THOSE “guys in the room” who have helped the Panthers without a ring work through their anxiety as the postseason rolled into the Eastern Conference finals, where Florida has a 2-0 series lead over the Carolina Hurricanes. They’re not worried about messing up things for these previous champions; instead, the fact they are champions gives them the model they need to emulate.
“One thing I would actually say has calmed me down recently is that the guys who do have rings understand what it takes,” said Schmidt, who has played 741 games in the NHL. “So, you don’t have to go and do anything above and beyond what we’re doing already. Just continue on the path. No sidetracking.”
Greer, who has had stints with five teams over his 248-game NHL career, said he had an inherent trust in his teammates when the playoffs started.
“Obviously, you don’t want to do anything to mess it up. But once you start playing with hesitation, once you start thinking too much, that’s when things go south,” he said. “So, it’s about just being able to stay composed and trust the group. That’s the biggest thing — everyone trusts the game plan.”
Greer said that trust extends from the coaches to the management to the players.
“Once you get a team that starts playing for each other and is able to respect and commit to the game plan every single night, you’ve got a winning recipe,” he said. “As long as you stay consistent with it, I think that that recipe is our best shot.”
But the ringless Panthers also want to add something to that recipe. For Greer, it was a little zip to the broth.
“You just try to fit in, come in and not disturb anything. You’re trying to blend in but add a little bit of your spice, I guess you’d say,” the forward said. “So, for me, coming into a group who had just won the Stanley Cup, I was just trying to inject a little bit of energy. They had a long season and sometimes that can get to you mentally and physically. So, coming in and kind of replenishing that energy, bringing in a new face, and just being myself personality-wise. It was a great fit.”
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A.J. Greer helps Panthers regain 2-goal lead
A.J. Greer scores early in the second period to help Florida regain a two-goal advantage over the Hurricanes.
Some of the ringless Panthers have come close to the Stanley Cup before. Nosek and Schmidt were on the Vegas Golden Knights in 2018 when they went to the Final in their inaugural season and lost to the Washington Capitals — ironically, Schmidt was a member of that Capitals team before being plucked away by Vegas in the expansion draft. Nosek and Schmidt missed the Knights’ Stanley Cup victory by a couple of seasons.
But many of the Panthers who’ve yet to win are coming from less successful situations. Vanecek was on the last-place San Jose Sharks before Florida acquired him. Jones hadn’t played in the postseason since the 2020 COVID-19 bubble. For them, the hunger wasn’t just earning a ring — it was playing meaningful hockey again.
Maurice can relate. The 58-year-old made the playoffs only four times in his first 16 seasons as an NHL head coach with the Hartford Whalers, Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets.
“I know what it’s like when your team’s not great. Your chances of making the playoffs are thin. [The players] are trying to set a standard in that room. They’re going to play hard, but they know they’re not 22 anymore. The clock’s ticking on a win,” he said. “At some point, it becomes no fun. The losing takes its toll, especially on your top-end guys. So, now they get a reprieve.”
As it has been for the previous two seasons, the ultimate goal is in reach for the Florida Panthers. The majority of their players became forever known as Stanley Cup champions one year ago. Jones, Schmidt and others are doing everything they can to join them.
“I don’t have a ring … but I want that ring, too. That’s one of the reasons I joined the Panthers,” Nosek said. “I don’t think there’s extra pressure [not having one]. There’s always pressure in the playoffs. It’s why I like it.”
