“We’re in the final once again, and we want to win the Stanley Cup just like any other team,” said Florida Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov. The team captain said it after a come-from-behind win against the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 5 helped the Panthers clinch their third straight conference final. That makes Bill Zito’s team only the second team to do so since the New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers in the 1980s.
While the Tampa Bay Lightning played three Stanley Cup finals from 2020 to 2022, the Panthers have taken up that mantle since 2023. So, what makes the three straight Eastern Conference Finals winners so special that they became one of only two teams to recapture what the Islanders and the Oilers did when they won four Stanley Cups in the 80s? That’s exactly what the media asked the Panthers’ GM.
The question made Bill Zito pause for a second before he revealed the Panthers’ secret, and that’s their stars. “The core of this group is a function of our best players, our stars,” revealed the Panthers GM. Yet, even among those stars, one name stood out. “It starts with Sasha (aka Aleksander Barkov),” Zito told the media. As per Zito, no one pushes others to do better like Barkov does.
“Paul’s talked about this, I’ve talked about it, the players have talked about it. The only person who doesn’t talk about it is Sasha, but how caring he is as a human and as a teammate and how it forces you to be better,” the Cats’ GM said after his team beat the Cane 5-3 yesterday.
Credits: Instagram/Aleksander Barkov
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