The Panthers’ fanbase has not been this excited since the days of Beazer and Company who had it raining rats at the old Miami Arena during the Cats’ first Stanley Cup run back in the 90s. 7News’s Mike DiPasquale spoke to some of those players to ask how the current team is similar to theirs.
It’s been 27 years since the Panthers last made the ‘Chase for the Cup.’
“This team is writing their own destiny,” said Billy Lindsay. He was a forward on the 1996 Panthers team that made it to the Stanley Cup finals.
As far as this year’s Panthers team, Lindsay and some of his teammates from 1996 see some similarities.
“You have to have guys that are able to not shrink at this time of year but raise their game,” said Lindsay. “You have a bunch of guys that were able to raise their game when it came into the playoff time. You can see that with this team.”
John Vanbiesbrouck, a former Panthers goalie, said the team has to have the chemistry and the energy to win.
“The Panthers have been playing well going into the playoffs before that because they had to make it,” said Vanbiesbrouck. “That’s a similarity, I think, to the team back in ’96 is having to play that way to get into the playoffs to start and being able to win in one-goal games.”
The former goalie has watched Sergei Bobrovsky, the current goalie of the Panthers, to see what he has done to win games.
“Get yourself in a mindset that you can be consistent,” said Vanbiesbrouck. “[Bobrovsky] is certainly there. I think he does it in a different way, but I certainly see it as a similarity. When you get on top of your game a little bit, you want to keep it running as much as you can.”
Ed ‘Jovo Cop’ Jovanovski, former Panther defenseman, believes this year’s team is ready for their moment.
“You look at this team and you look at our team, the talent level is obviously much greater,” said Jovanovski. “They are a very deep team. In the back-end it’s solid. They are four wins away from raising this big cup over your head. It doesn’t seem like a lot but the grind that they’re going to have to go through to win this cup is going to be unbelievable. It’s going to take a lot of focus and a lot of team play.”
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