SUNRISE, Fla. — Each time the Florida Panthers win, Brad Marchand is aware of what’s coming subsequent: his teammates hearth plastic rats at him with their sticks as they depart the ice in one of many NHL’s oddest postgame celebrations.
“Yeah, they’re taking pictures to harm now,” Marchand mentioned on Saturday, forward of Recreation 3 of the Jap Convention finals towards the Carolina Hurricanes. “Matthew Tkachuk caught me with one final recreation that I truly actually felt there.”
Panthers followers have thrown toy rats on the ice in celebration because the 1995-96 season, when ahead Scott Mellanby exterminated a rodent along with his stick — in a second perpetually generally known as “The Rat Trick” — in the identical season that Florida made a miraculous run to the Stanley Cup Closing. Rats have turn into unofficial mascots for the franchise, to the purpose the place their official crew retailer not solely sells rodent-adorned merchandise but additionally the plastic rats themselves.
Marchand has been known as a “rat” with frequency throughout his 16-year NHL profession, which is hockey parlance for being an agitator on the ice. So the celebration was a pure evolution when the Panthers acquired him on the NHL commerce deadline from the Boston Bruins.
With the ice plagued by plastic rodents on the finish of Panthers wins, Marchand’s teammates started taking pictures rats at “The Rat” on their method to the dressing room.
How did this custom start?
“They see my household on the ice and wish us to be collectively,” Marchand deadpanned.
Really, it was Panthers winger Evan Rodrigues that first shot a rat at Marchand in celebration.
“Yeah, I do not know the way it began. However I feel we gained the primary recreation he was right here, so we ended up doing it. And it is simply type of turned a factor,” Rodrigues mentioned.
Later, Florida captain Aleksander Barkov and Tkachuk — who has his personal fame as an agitator — began slapping rats at Marchand as nicely.
“It is simply a kind of issues that occurs organically,” Marchand mentioned. “We do not overthink it. We simply have enjoyable on the market.”
It is not solely occurring at residence for the Panthers. In Raleigh for Recreation 2 of the convention finals, among the Florida followers in attendance tossed sufficient rats on the ice after the 5-0 victory that the Panthers gamers had ammo for Marchand.
That was the primary time Florida coach Paul Maurice witnessed the custom firsthand, because the teaching workers waited for the gamers to file out of the rink.
“I’ll inform you that they are taking pictures them as exhausting as they’ll,” Maurice mentioned. “They are not flipping them at him. There’s shrapnel round there, and I did not have any tools on. I used to be simply making an attempt to get off the ice with out getting harm. They’re heating them up at him, and he is making an attempt to get out of the best way. That is humorous as hell.”
Marchand mentioned it is a “small sampling” of the enjoyable the Panthers are having collectively, as they try to win a second straight Stanley Cup championship. Middle Sam Bennett mentioned that is simply who they’re.
“We do not change the best way we put together for video games from common single video games to playoff video games. We’re at all times joking round. Even earlier than Recreation 7 [of the Stanley Cup Final], there was simply as many chirps and jokes going round earlier than that recreation as in a preseason recreation,” he mentioned. “I feel it is simply the best way our crew prepares and it appears to work for us. So we undoubtedly get pleasure from it.”
Maurice mentioned all of the enjoyable that’s had within the common season will get a lot better throughout an extended postseason run.
“There are actually enjoyable tales which might be simply type of natural. Now they’re ripping the plastic rats off Marchy, and it is humorous as hell,” he mentioned.
