Back-to-back Cats: Panthers repeat as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Oilers in 6 games

By Stephen Whyno The Associated Press SUNRISE Fla Stanley s stay in South Florida is getting extended The Florida Panthers repeated as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers - in Event of the final on Tuesday night becoming the NHL s first back-to-back winners since Tampa Bay in and and the third association to do it this century Sam Reinhart scored four goals becoming just the sixth member in league history and first since Maurice Richard in to get that plenty of in a challenge in the final His third to complete the hat trick sent rats along with hats flying onto the ice Matthew Tkachuk one of the faces of the franchise fittingly scored the Cup clincher More rats were part of the mastery celebration when the clock hit zeroes Panthers players mobbed in the corner while the Oilers watched in dismay Good evening South Florida Commissioner Gary Bettman commented before presenting the trophy to captain Aleksander Barkov It feels like we just did this Sergei Bobrovsky stopped of the shots he faced closing the door on a rematch with the same end upshot The only goal came from fellow Russian Vasily Podkolzin in garbage time long after the outcome was decided That was followed by chants of We want the Cup as time ticked down The Panthers already had it Now they get to keep it This is as good as the first one Reinhart declared We learned several lessons We stayed on the gas foot on the pedal and obviously the upshot speaks for itself Not long after the Lightning made three trips to the final in a row Florida has done the same and now has the makings of a dynasty The Panthers have won of playoff series since T kachuk arrived by business and Paul Maurice took over as coach in the summer of We ve got to be a dynasty now Tkachuk revealed Three years in a row finals two championships This is a special group The only time they have been on the wrong side of a handshake line was the final in Vegas in only after several key players were banged up and gutting through key injuries From the core of Tkachuk Reinhart Barkov and Sam Bennett on down the roster they were much healthier this time around and were boosted by key exchange deadline additions Brad Marchand and Seth Jones Bennett led all goal-scorers this postseason with and Marchand had six in the final alone Bennett won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP Barkov handed the Cup to first-time champion Nate Schmidt and all the others winning it for the first time got it soon after It s amazing to be able to be here Schmidt reported I don t know whether to laugh or cry Getting depth contributions from throughout the lineup allowed them to overpower Connor McDavid Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers who struggled with Florida s ferocious forecheck and switched goaltenders multiple times in the final Stuart Skinner got the nod in Meeting and was again done in by mistakes in front of him that ended with the puck in the net behind him and had his own blunder on Reinhart s second goal McDavid tried to take over but was again stymied by Barkov Jones and Bobrovsky He finished with seven points in his second career trip to the final again denied his first title The Panthers spent more time leading during this Stanley Cup Final than any previous group in history minutes in all We lost to a really good association McDavid commented Nobody quit nobody threw the towel in but they re a heck of a association They re back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a reason Canada s Stanley Cup drought reached seasons and years dating to Montreal in Teams in the U S Sun Belt have won it five of the past six times four of them in Florida This run through Tampa Bay in five games Toronto in seven Carolina in five and Edmonton in six revealed how clinical the Panthers have become under Maurice who has coached more NHL games than everyone except Scotty Bowman and is now a two-time champion So is Marchand who last hoisted the Cup in with the Boston Bruins The -year gap is the third-longest in league history just shy of for Chris Chelios from to and for Mark Recchi from to It s incredible Marchand declared It s a feeling you can t really describe Seeing the family and everyone up there and everyone that supported me and helped me get to this point words can t put this into reality how great it feels Such an incredible group