The Florida Panthers season opened like a bottle of champagne Thursday night — with rats on the ice.
It was 25 years ago when the Panthers, 3-year-old hockey toddlers, somehow miracled their way into the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals. They were just happy to be there. They weren’t ready. They got swept in four games.
A quarter-century has passed and South Florida is still waiting for the right ending, and so only one question matters as the new season charges onto the ice:
Are they ready? Are the Cats finally ready to be the best?
Thursday was a good start. A debut that showed fight where the quit might have been.
Florida’s 28th NHL season, the one they hope will end in celebration, saw the Cats jump out to a 2-0 lead, fall behind, 4-2, send it into overtime — and then win on Carter Verhaeghe’s second goal of the night made the horn blast and the toy rats dance onto the ice.
Florida 5, Pittsburgh Penguins 4.
“The comeback Cats are back,” said Verhaeghe.
It ended like a party should, not only for the comeback win, but for the full crowd back in the Sunrise arena ready for that party after two seasons shortened and otherwise affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is, without equivocation, the most-hyped season in franchise history. And Thursday did little to dampen that.
The Stanley Cup Finals may not be a prerequisite — but a deep playoff run is. That means win at least one postseason series, bare minimum. Which Florida last did in halcyon, Cinderella ‘96.
The theme of the pregame hype video shown in the arena — and of this season — was described in a phrase by (of all people) Dolphins Hall of Famer Jason Taylor, wearing a Panthers sweater:
“It’s time to hunt,” he intoned.
For Lord Stanley’s Cup, we presume.
The best regular season in Panthers history ended in luckless disappointment last year, drawing Tampa Bay in the first round of the playoffs en route to the Lightning’s second straight league championship.
In the offseason, reflecting a franchise that believes it is ready for a long run of title-chasing, the Panthers extended star Aleksander Barkov with an eight-year, $80 million contract — richest in club history.
“I definitely sense a little more hunger,” said general manager Bill Zito of his team entering the new season. “I’m excited. I like our roster.”
Barkov didn’t wait long to pay dividends on his rich new deal. Florida led 9:17 in when Carter Verhaeghe’s even-handed goal christened the season and made the horn blast on perfect service from Captain Barkov.
It was 2-nil 3:57 into the second period on Anthony Duclair’s shot.
They needed the cushion because the Penguins cashed two power-play goals in the second period to tie it, the first by Danton Heinen 11:45 in and the second by Jeff Carter at 18:58.
Florida ranked a mediocre 18th in penalty-killing last season, and defending while short-handed continued an issue Thursday night. The Cats also were only mid-pack in power-play scoring last season, ranking 15th, and were 0-for-6 Thursday while skating with an advantage.
But Pittsburgh’s third and fourth goals that crushed the Cats both were even-handed. The Pens’ 3-2 lead 8:01 into the third period came when goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky saved but could not smother or clear a shot by Jake Guentzel, who punched the deflection into the net. It was 4-2 only 30 seconds later when, similarly, a Bobrovsky save was struck back in at close range by Evan Rodrigues.
Florida wasn’t finished, though. Aaron Ekblad was just getting started.
It was 4-4 on a pair of late Ekblad goals. The first at 13:29 saw him lift lift a shot over a crowd of fallen bodies in the crease nearly obliterating the net. The tying shot from farther out saw him raise his arms in jubilation as he ran on skates toward the bedlam noise.
“Ek is having a game out there,” said coach Joel Quenneville afterward.
Ekblad — who had missed most of last season including the playoffs after a gruesome leg injury — was the opening-night hero when Florida needed one. Until Verhaeghe was the last one they needed.
Pittsburgh was a quality opponent with a regular-season game under its belt, an impressive 6-2 win at champion Tampa Bay 48 hours earlier.
“It’s important to get a good start,” Jonathan Huberdeau, the next cornerstone piece the Cats need to hang onto with a contract extension, had said before the game. “We know what we can do and it doesn’t mater whatever everybody is expecting. We have to do it on the ice.”
With Barkov, Huberdeau and the return of a healthy defenseman Ekblad completing the core three, with the depth of four lines that can score and defend, and with the second-winningest coach in NHL history in Quenneville orchestrating, the pieces seem all here.
Oh, and what could be a dynamic goaltending duo in the veteran Bobrovsky and and 20-year-old Spencer Knight. (At 33, Bobrovsky has an immovable contract that has five years left and likely won’t age well. One can envision a diminished role being at odds with his $10 million salary as Knight emerges. But that’s for another day.)
The Panthers, like the relentlessly competitive Miami Heat, are considered not betting favorites to win it all but at least legitimate contenders in their sports.
Florida’s path in the NHL may be even tougher than the Heat’s in basketball. Consider that seven of ESPN’s top-10 teams in its season-opening NHL power rankings are in the Eastern Conference — four of them ahead of the No. 7 Panthers.
But the Cats merely joining the Heat in the high-hopes category sets them apart in this market, sadly.
The Dolphins and Hurricanes football continue a 20-year struggle to extract from the doldrums and be nationally relevant again. The slow-building Marlins show signs of progress but just came off a very disappointing season. David Beckham’s Inter Miami has failed to make the splash in MLS that many expected.
But we’re pretty sure the Heat will be good ... and we wonder if the Panthers might be even better.
They did little in Thursday night’s opener but stoke a hungry fan’s imagination on that.
Although 25 years of waiting for another Stanley Cup Finals appearance is there to constantly remind that the proving has only just begun.
