Anyone who has been invested in the National Hockey League over the years knows that, as the seasons pile on, the game evolves.
Training evolves. Players evolve. Pace of play evolves, getting faster and faster. And that "just right" formula for sustained success evolves, too.
And every so often, a team comes around that makes the league rethink how to win.
Right now? That team is the Florida Panthers, who are headed to their third consecutive Eastern Conference Final. They'll have a chance to punch their ticket to their third consecutive Stanley Cup Final as well if they can handle Rod Brind'Amour's structurally-oriented Carolina Hurricanes.
If they can accomplish that, they will become the first team since the New York Islanders from 1980-84 to reach at least three consecutive Cup Final series in full-length seasons, which is a testament to how unbeatable and relentless these Panthers have become.
So how have they done it?
Reinventing the wheel
Back in 2016, the Pittsburgh Penguins took the league by storm. Prior to the emergence of former head coach Mike Sullivan's Penguins, the entire league was mired in a mini-dead-puck era, as scoring was stymied, teams were heavy and slow, and defenses were heavy on the trap-style structure again, similar to what was happening in the actual dead-puck era of the late-1990s and early-2000s.
But Pittsburgh adopted a fresh strategy: beat teams with speed, relentless forecheck, and dominant possession. They decided that the best defense was offense, and that, if they always had the puck on their stick, it would be very hard to teams to generate anything against them.
Suffice to say, it worked. The Penguins won back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2016 and 2017, largely off the backs of the new system they had implemented. Even though they were defeated by the Washington Capitals during the second round of the 2018 playoffs - the Caps eventually went on to win the Cup - they still altered the game as a whole in a very significant way.
Before you knew it, that speed, relentless forechecking, and possession dominance started showing up on teams all across the league. Like the Penguins, other teams began to form an identity around that style of play.
Sullivan - now with the New York Rangers - has discussed, at many points, that the league is a copycat league. Other coaches have said the same. When something unequivocally works for one team - and they become a dominant, near-dynastic force - other teams tend to adopt the same or a similar formula for success.
Nowadays, you'd be hard-pressed to find a successful team at the NHL level that doesn't skate well and have that speed element. All four teams remaining in the Stanley Cup Playoffs - the Panthers, Hurricanes, Dallas Stars, and Edmonton Oilers - have that.
But, as the Panthers seemed to have figured out, merely having speed isn't enough anymore.
On This Day In Penguins Playoff History: May 18The Pittsburgh Penguins just wrapped up their 57th season, missing the Stanley Cup playoffs for the third consecutive season. Despite their recent lack of success, the franchise has appeared in the playoffs 37 times and won five championships.
Old-time hockey meets modern hockey
Of all active players on Florida's playoff roster, only three of them - Evan Rodrigues, Mackie Samoskevich, and Brad Marchand (acquired at the trade deadline from the Boston Bruins) - are under six feet tall, and just four weigh less than 190 pounds. Their roster also has 10 players standing at 6-foot-3 or higher and 10 weighing more than 200 pounds.
This is not just a fast roster. It's a big one, too. And it's chock-full of players who aren't afraid to throw the body as well as take hits to make plays.
Even the team's smallest player, Marchand (5-foot-9, 180 pounds), doesn't play the game in a small way. He plays a punishing brand of physical hockey, can establish positioning down low, forechecks relentlessly, and wins a lot of puck battles along the walls.
On the Penguins' 2017 Stanley Cup champion roster? Only five players on their playoff roster stood at 6-foot-3-plus, and - although 10 players also came in at 200 pounds or more - they had nine players weighing under 200 pounds and 12 players under six feet tall.
In 2016-18, the speed, forechecking, possession system that the Penguins were playing was still a novel concept, and it worked for them. But there reached a point where, once other teams caught on and began to deploy similar systems, it simply wasn't enough for them anymore.
The Tampa Bay Lightning - who reached the Cup Final three seasons in a row from 2019-22 but had two shortened seasons mixed in - also deployed a pretty big roster during their Cup runs, but they weren't exactly beating teams with blazing speed. They swarmed teams defensively, had a lethal power play, used their size and physicality to their advantage, and had the best goaltender in the world playing his best hockey. They had effective solutions for neutralizing the speed of opposing teams.
Taking a moment to appreciate how far Florida Panthers have comeThe Florida Panthers sure seem to enjoy playing hockey in May.
But the thing that makes Florida so dangerous is that they've managed to marry those two styles: Pittsburgh's speed, forechecking, and possession game and Tampa's size, physicality, defensive structure, and "swarm" mentality to, essentially, create the perfect playoff team for the present-day NHL.
It's hard to beat a team that can beat you in so many different ways. Florida can play a run-and-gun style if need be, and their speed and physicality shines in those types of games. They can play a tight defensive game if need be, and their defensive structure and swarm mentality in the neutral zone thrives in those games.
And they can play a suffocating game on the forecheck, dominating possession and controlling play like they did against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Games 5 and 7 during their second-round victory.
Florida can deliver a game however the game demands. Coaching has a lot to do with it, and - make no mistake - Paul Maurice has done an excellent job. But they also have the personnel required to be able to get it done.
Will other teams follow suit?
Simply put, they should.
Of course, one could make the argument that goaltending always helps, and it's something most teams need in order to go all the way. Matt Murray and Marc-Andre Fleury got it done for the Penguins throughout the course of their back-to-back runs. No one was better than Andrei Vasilevskiy during Tampa's back-to-back.
But it's not that Sergei Bobrovsky has performed poorly for the Panthers, it's just that his team's play hasn't required him to be spectacular. Sure, he's making most of the big saves in big moments, but the 36-year-old veteran still owns just a .901 save percentage during this year's playoffs. And he had a .906 save percentage during last year's Cup run.
Florida has, simply, been that good in front of him. The way they've managed to fuse old-time hockey with the modern speed game is the perfect combination, and it's something that is going to help them in a playoff atmosphere that requires all of that in order to win.
Other teams need to be taking notes. Just having speed, or just having size, or just having goaltending isn't going to cut it in today's game.
Sure, there are bound to be exceptions. The Oilers don't have the defensive structure or the punishing physical style of play, but they do have the speed, the lethal power play, and the star power to push them through the shortcomings in their game. Having, arguably, the two best players in the world on the same team - and the same line, when things get dire - is one way to win.
But it's not a sustainable winning strategy. Sure, Edmonton made it to the Final last season against Florida, and they forced a Game 7 after going down 3-0 in the series. However, they're playing from behind more often than they're playing ahead, and - while it shows resiliency - it's not something that can be repeated year-over-year. And they're playing from behind because of the deficiencies in their game.
Panthers play excellent Game 7 in Toronto, advance to conference finalThe Florida Panthers are moving on to conference final.
In contrast, Florida seems to have cracked the code with roster construction. Their star is Matthew Tkachuk, but he's not a top-five player in the game. That isn't a problem, though because there are five Panthers players in this year's playoffs - Marchand, Eetu Luostarinen, Sam Reinhart, Anton Lundell, and Aleksander Barkov - who have more than Tkachuk's nine points. And Sam Bennett, who also has nine, has potted six goals.
And none of these guys shy away from going to the dirty areas, forechecking hard, getting physical, and asserting themselves in the neutral and defensive zones. But they also have a big, effective blue line that can play on both sides of the puck and deliver on a punishing, demanding brand of hockey.
The Panthers have managed to build a formidable four-line team with speed, size, skill, physicality, grit, and meanness. The Stars may be the closest comparison, and - arguably - the deepest team in hockey, but they're missing that element of meanness, which makes a difference in the playoffs.
More likely than not - just as it was when the Penguins took over the league in 2016 - we're going to start to see more and more teams mimick the Panthers' makeup and roster construction. Once again, it's a copycat league, and Florida has proven to be one of the very best - if not, the best - team in hockey.
So if the rest of the NHL wants to catch the Florida Panthers, they're going to have to become more like them.
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