The Panthers, the bad boys of the NHL, are ‘very comfortable with who they are’

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SUNRISE, Fla. — The Florida Panthers are not only the resident bad boys of the National Hockey League, but they’re also the defending Stanley Cup champions.

They illustrated both facts on Monday.

Florida threw a couple of flagrantly illegal hits, killed a five-minute major penalty while trailing in the third period, overcame the sobering ruling of a game-tying call being overruled by an offside challenge, tied the game anyway and used a dramatic spurt to push the Lightning to the brink in a 4-2 victory.

Everything about this night was a microcosm of why the Panthers have owned the Eastern Conference for the past three seasons and why they appear to have surpassed their bitter rivals for potentially long-term state bragging rights. One more win will do it.

This one didn’t feel like it was going to be a Panthers’ win, but then their championship moxie arrived. Their nastiness and tendency to cross the line showed up a couple of hours earlier.

“Belief is a dangerous thing,” Brad Marchand said. “We had it. You could feel it.”

Flying forearms are a dangerous thing, too.

The postgame setting was so deliciously Florida.

As teams typically do in the postseason, the Panthers decided against making Aaron Ekblad available to the media. Normally, one would think he would speak. After all, it was Ekblad, among Florida’s most important team leaders, who had his game-tying goal denied by the offside challenge. And yet, it was Ekblad who scored a beauty to even the game with 3:47 remaining in regulation.

Talk about compelling drama.

“He had to score twice,” Seth Jones, who scored the game-winner 11 seconds after the game-tying tally, said with a smile.

Ekblad wasn’t around to speak of it, of course, because he delivered a hit earlier in the game that is very possibly going to result in a suspension. The veteran defenseman’s flying forearm to the head of Brandon Hagel is no doubt going to receive the NHL’s attention.

Aaron Ekblad goes forearm to Brandon Hagel’s dome. No penalty on the play.
pic.twitter.com/NyjbSJuCSb

— Spittin’ Chiclets (@spittinchiclets) April 29, 2025

So, who sat at the podium in front of reporters? Brad Marchand, of course. When the team representative is Brad Marchand, in part because he won’t be one of the players who could be in trouble with the NHL, it’s easy to declare that this is a menacing hockey team.

Is it ever?

Ekblad, quite remarkably, was not given a penalty on the play, which prompted Jon Cooper to scream “there’s f—— four of you” at the referees and linesmen in the aftermath of the play.

Later in the game, Florida defenseman Niko Mikkola was ejected and given a five-minute penalty for driving his left arm into the back of Zemgus Girgensons’ head while the forward was on his knees, face-first toward the boards.

Mikkola gets a major for boarding Girgensons — the play is reviewed and the original call stands pic.twitter.com/s0Jcmz7qXS

— Shayna (@shaynagoldman_) April 29, 2025

Florida coach Paul Maurice wasn’t interested in speaking of those infractions, though he didn’t go out of his way to defend the actions.

“The players will play, the refs will make the calls, the league will do what they want,” Maurice said. “I don’t want to use this platform to keep making my case.”

Cooper turned combative with a reporter after the game, asking the assembled for their opinion on the hit, simply saying that he finds it “tiresome” having to answer questions about hits every game.

Jon Cooper says postgame that it’s “getting tiresome answering questions about a hit every single game” pic.twitter.com/19McZhTzyH

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 29, 2025

He likely finds it more tiresome that his team is having to deal with such hits every game.

Dealing with Florida’s mental toughness absurdly isn’t pleasant, either.

The Panthers felt in trouble during the entire third period, and somehow roared back in the final minutes.

Marchand, new to the Panthers but quite familiar with them, was blown away.

“That was exciting,” he said. “We’ve been through moments like this before. One thing I see in this group is the level of calm throughout the game.”

That’s the score thing about these Panthers. On one level, they are so ferocious, so physically intimidating. If it’s not Ekblad or Mikkola, it’s Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Bennett, or someone else who isn’t afraid to cross the line.

At the same time, however, the Panthers have the ability to lock in mentally like no other team in hockey. Such volatile physicality, coupled with the ability to produce outrageous mental calmness, is rare.

So are teams like the Panthers.

“You can just tell, the way the guys carry themselves, the guys in this room are very comfortable with who they are,” Marchand said. “It makes everyone calm around you. You get that from experience. It doesn’t mean everything is going to go your way. Sometimes the bounces go your way. Sometimes they don’t. Tonight, they went our way.”

That calm Marchand speaks of goes a long way toward killing off that five-minute major in the third period, and to pulling even and then scoring again against the great Andrei Vasilevskiy in an 11-second span.

Marchand is so impressed by what he now sees up close on a daily basis. He spoke of what it was like to play against Florida when he was with the Bruins, and what it’s like to be on the other side.

“Just the swagger and a belief,” he said. “They (the Panthers) just keep coming at you, believing in their system. They don’t change much. They just believed in it. And it worked. That’s deflating when teams come at you in waves. I love getting the behind-the-scenes look at these teams that have gone far and have had great success. When you look at it, you realize it doesn’t happen by accident. A plan went into motion. Guys bought in. When you have that complete buy-in, good things happen. We have a great group.”

Marchand was one of Florida’s best players and Maurice is clearly taken by the veteran.

“He is up and down our bench all third period,” Maurice said. ‘Stay in the fight, fellas.’ All positive. You need that. It’s quiet. You’ve got guys who are quiet playing huge minutes recovering on the bench.”

It was a boisterous Florida locker room that celebrated the Game 4 conquest.

Don’t expect the champs to become too full of themselves, however. The Lightning don’t figure to go down without a fight.

If it’s a fight they want, of course, the Panthers aren’t afraid of such things.

One moment, they are throwing savage hits. The next minute, their head coach reminds everyone that they are simply a winning machine, that they possess a formula that works.

“It’s 10:22 p.m.,” Maurice said. “We’ll enjoy it for an hour and 38 minutes.”

When midnight comes, the rabid Panthers will calmly regain their focus, like the killers that they are.

And they can go for the kill on Wednesday.

“Then,” Maurice concluded, referring to the midnight hour, “it’s back to work.”

(Photo: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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