Hornqvist continuing to push Panthers toward Stanley Cup from sidelines

SUNRISE, Fla. --The shots fly in at Sergei Bobrovsky, the goalie for the Florida Panthers. They're to warm him up, to get him ready, to ensure that he is at his best. It started just after the All-Star break, when Bobrovsky asked Patric Hornqvist to lend him a hand after multiple concussions had sidelined the forward.

"It's fun," Hornqvist said. "He always needs to get some shots before practice, and it started to be our routine. I have to be out there every game day and shoot pucks at him.

"It's great for me, too, to be around the boys and be around the locker room, so I don't miss that that much and I feel more involved."

It's a routine that the two veterans have honed over the months, a routine similar from session to session, as Bobrovsky directs Hornqvist around the net so he can take different shots from different angles, whatever the goalie feels he needs.

"He tells me what to shoot," Hornqvist said.

"I'm a good shooter," he adds, laughing.

It's just one of the ways in which Hornqvist -- quietly, steadily, behind the scenes -- has been pushing the Panthers forward, toward the Stanley Cup Playoffs, toward the Stanley Cup Final, toward what he hopes is a first championship for the franchise, for most of his teammates, and a third for himself, even though he's not been able to be on the ice for games. Hornqvist has not played since Dec. 3, when he sustained his second concussion in the span of a month.

So, the 36-year-old will only be able to watch when the Panthers take on the Vegas Golden Knights in the Final, which begins with Game 1 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; TNT, TBS, truTV, CBC, TVAS, SN).

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But that doesn't mean he's not helping.

"Patric Hornqvist is a great story for us," Florida coach Paul Maurice said. "He is a hard-driving, fit man. He would be very similar in Carolina to Roddy Brind'Amour. He's in that gym. And now it's over for him, but he stayed, and when we have injured players, he skates them, he drives them. You've got to keep up with Patric if you think you're ready to play, which is no easy task."

It was, in some ways, exactly what general manager Bill Zito envisioned when he acquired Hornqvist from the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sept. 24, 2020. That deal came just 22 days after Zito was hired as GM, and he had to convince the forward to waive his no-trade clause to complete the trade, which sent Colton Sceviour and Mike Matheson to the Penguins.

Zito had wanted to change the culture and bring in a sense of responsibility and competitiveness that ran alongside an undercurrent of fun.

And, as Zito put it, "Hornqvist was a huge part of that."

"Bill was really clear with me," Hornqvist said. "He said we need to build a new culture here, a winning culture. That's what I like to do."

Hornqvist saw the building blocks in Bobrovsky, in Aleksander Barkov, in Zito, and he saw what could be. Even if it took longer than some might have foreseen, none of this is a surprise to Hornqvist.

"Since I came here, we've always been a winning team, always made the playoffs, always taking the next step," Hornqvist said. "I think for people it's hard to understand. It's not going to take one season and you go and win the Stanley Cup. Look at Colorado, it took them probably three, four really good seasons to get there, and now we're in the same spot."

But now, just when all that building is paying off, Hornqvist has been relegated to warm-up duties. And with him set to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, Hornqvist does not know whether his career might be over.

For now, though, he is doing his best to stay in the present, to provide leadership off the ice, to help where he can as one of only three players on the Panthers to have previously won the Stanley Cup, along with Carter Verhaeghe (2020 with the Tampa Bay Lightning) and Eric Staal (2006 with the Carolina Hurricanes).

"Obviously, I'm not going to play more this year," Hornqvist said. "And then we will [reevaluate] everything and make a decision here when the season is over."

Is he hoping?

"No," he said. "I'm not hoping. I'm living in this moment right now and putting everything else on the side."

Is it making anything easier?

"No, not really," he said. "It's still hard."

But he is feeling better. His concussion symptoms have abated, and he can take the ice for all those practice shots. As he put it, "almost normal."

"When we took the decision I'm not going to play more this season, obviously you put your mind out of the things you can't control," Hornqvist said. "Obviously, you want to be out there at this point of the year. This is what you play for, this is the best part of the year.

"But for me to be through one of these runs again, sitting on the sideline, it's awesome. I can see how much fun the boys are having. Yes, I am jealous, but at the same time, I probably enjoy it as much as them because it's a special, special time of year. A special situation."

And he sees how much they want it, how much of a force this team has become. He's seen it before too; Hornqvist won the Cup with the Penguins in 2016 and 2017, including scoring the Cup-clinching goal with 1:35 remaining in the third period of Game 6 against the Nashville Predators in 2017.

"Just the look in their eyes, like nothing is impossible," he said. "That's what it is for us right now."