SUNRISE, Fla. -- For the Florida Panthers, the only thing that could’ve topped last season’s Stanley Cup banner raising was doing it again.
The Panthers hoisted their 2025 championship banner to the rafters prior to their season-opening 3-2 win against the Chicago Blackhawks at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday.
“It’s a great opportunity to enjoy it one last time and kind of turn the page,” forward Brad Marchand said after the game. “The second that puck drops, it’s a whole new season, a new opportunity, new challenges. We’ve already had to face some adversity this year and it’s a great opportunity to come together. It’s a pretty special feeling, being able to watch it go up, and now it’s going to be up there forever.
“But the emotion carries over in the game and we started really well. I think you can see the guys were excited. Not obviously our best effort for 60, but a good win for us.”
Coach Paul Maurice said the Panthers’ championship ring ceremony Monday in Fort Lauderdale, followed by the banner raising Tuesday, made for an enjoyable reminder of their achievements.
“I get to watch the players, right?” Maurice said. “So they kind of all lock arms out there. It’s nice for all of us. You live in it, you win and then you kind of have the summer where you think about it. It almost gets to the point you forget how rare it is to be able to do that, to be able to do that twice especially. But I appreciated the guys locking arms at the blue line, remembering that.
“It was a really nice 24 hours for us because we don’t talk about it much and you win it, you have the parade and everybody leaves town. It’s gone and then you come back at training camp, it hits you. So, the last 24 hours we got to relive it a little bit. It was very nice.”
The ceremony Tuesday began with a video looking back at the 2024-25 season. Cheers rose for footage of the Panthers’ two biggest acquisitions prior to the NHL Trade Deadline: defenseman Seth Jones, whom they acquired from the Blackhawks in the deal for goalie Spencer Knight on March 1, and Marchand, who came over from the Boston Bruins on March 7.
The crowd cheered again as the Panthers were shown lifting the Cup after their 5-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final here June 17 that secured the second championship in their history.
As the remaining Panthers lined up at the boards along their bench, defenseman and alternate captain Aaron Ekblad brought the Stanley Cup onto the ice. That is usually done by the captain, but Aleksander Barkov is expected to be out 7-9 months after having surgery on the ACL and MCL in his right knee on Sept. 26.
Then the banner was raised to the rafters as most of the Panthers players gathered at the blue line with their arms around each other to watch its ascent.
To cap the ceremony, public address announcer Andrew Imber said, “As the Stanley Cup trophy exits the ice, a new hunt begins.”
To that, the crowd chanted, “We want three.”
