Patchwork Panthers: How Florida built a perennial contender - ESPN

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Paul Maurice could tell his team was different.

The Florida Panthers' head coach joked — at first — that players this season compared to last didn't find him so funny. They'd lost a former appetite for schtick with a side of hockey talk. Florida had tasted greatness on a Cinderella run to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final. Falling short there was no laughing matter.

The Panthers' tone had shifted. Maurice saw it in training camp. The Panthers regrouped, expecting to be Cup contenders. One player in particular embodied the attitude adjustment.

«That's the value of [Aleksander] Barkov,» Maurice said. «He will not stop, and he won't quit; how does anybody else? Because he is the face, the driver and the captain, he does set a bar for work. Your fourth-line guys are going to come out and work as hard as they can because they have to make the team. But how hard [Barkov] drives the team is the expectation of everybody else. He's not an aloof captain. He's part of the group. So he sets that tone.»

If the Panthers were a house, then Barkov is the foundation. He's the franchise's longest-tenured player after Florida drafted him second overall in 2013 to be a cornerstone playmaker. Barkov is a rarity in more ways than one. The top-line center is one of just four players on the Panthers' current roster that the team drafted themselves — and one of only three who've never dressed for another NHL club.

Compare that to Florida's opponent in the Eastern Conference finals. The New York Rangers have nine draftees in their postseason lineup — plus Adam Fox. He wasn't technically drafted by New York, but the Rangers acquired his signing rights from the Carolina Hurricanes (who had previously acquired them from the Calgary