The Florida Panthers decided to do something different this season when they received the Prince of Wales Trophy, and they hope it pays off.
NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly presented the trophy to captain Aleksander Barkov following a 2-1 victory over the New York Rangers in Game 6 of the NHL Finals. East at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Fla., on Saturday. Barkov didn’t touch the trophy before he and his teammates posed for photos with it.
“We dabbled in it last year and it didn’t work for us,” forward Sam Bennett said. “So we thought we’d try something different this year.”
Last season, the Panthers touched and skated with the trophy, and forward Matthew Tkachuk said, “The last thing we’re going to do is be superstitious about not touching it.” Nobody said we were going to make the playoffs. . I think it’s pretty cool to touch it, carry it around, and take pictures with it. We deserved this thing.
However, Florida would then lose in five games to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Cup Final.
At the end of the game Saturday, it looked like coach Paul Maurice told Barkov on the bench not to touch the trophy.
“He also told me last year (not to touch it),” Barkov said afterwards. “Last year we had a different situation, but we’re not going to talk about last year. This year I think we all agreed not to touch it.”
When told that Barkov revealed that he challenged him a year ago when it came to touching the trophy, Maurice said: “I think ‘Sasha’ has a pretty good sense of humor. Actually, I don’t remember it. All I know is that there’s a picture somewhere here of him carrying it in the hallway, so at that moment, I. I must have said I told him, right? It has nothing to do with anything, but we’re playing our stupid games.
In 1996, the only other time the Panthers won the Prince of Wales Trophy, captain Brian Skrudland lifted the trophy. The Panthers were then swept by the Colorado Avalanche in the Cup final.
The Tampa Bay Lightning, who won the trophy from 2020 to 2022, touched it three times, but were defeated in the Cup final by the Avalanche in six games in 2022. Before that, they won the Cup in 2020 against the Dallas Stars and in 2021 against the Montreal Canadiens.
Recent history doesn’t seem to be on the Panthers’ side. Five of the last eight teams to win the Cup have won the Prince of Wales Trophy. Before 2020, Sidney Crosby hit it in 2016 and 2017 before helping the Pittsburgh Penguins win the Cup each season, and Alex Ovechkin did the same in 2018 with the Washington Capitals, who won the Cup.
The tradition of not touching the Prince of Wales Trophy has not worked well for the Eastern Conference champions in recent seasons. The 2011 Boston Bruins are the last team to win the Cup after choosing not to touch it. The last five teams not to have done so lost in the Cup final.
Bruins captain Zdeno Chara didn’t touch the trophy in 2019 and Boston lost to the St. Louis Blues in seven games in the Cup final. The New Jersey Devils (2012), Bruins (2013), Rangers (2014) and Lightning (2015) all lost in the Cup final after refusing to touch the trophy.
Due to a temporary realignment of divisions due to COVID-19 in 2020–21, the third round of the playoffs was renamed the Stanley Cup Semifinal instead of the Conference Final. The Prince of Wales Trophy was awarded to the Lightning after beating the New York Islanders in seven games.
The Prince of Wales Trophy has been awarded to the Eastern Conference champion since the 1993-94 season.
Florida will face the Dallas Stars or the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup final, which begins June 8. Edmonton leads this series 3-2 and can advance to the Cup final with a win in Game 6 at home Sunday (8 p.m. ET; TNT, truTV, MAX, SN, TVAS).
NHL.com writer Amalie Benjamin and independent correspondent George Richards contributed to this report.
News Source : www.nhl.com
Gn sports
