The Florida Panthers are one game away from winning the Stanley Cup. Up 3-0 on the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final, the Panthers could finish off the sweep on Saturday. It has been an incredibly impressive performance top to bottom from the Panthers, as they’ve throttled the Oilers’ high-powered offence while getting scoring throughout their lineup.
From a Vancouver Canucks perspective, it’s perhaps a bummer that another team will win their first Stanley Cup before the Canucks do, but at least a few former Canucks will hoist the Cup, such as Roberto Luongo as part of the team’s front office and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who is still on the Canucks’ payroll through 2028. The Panthers have been a powerhouse team for a few years now: they won the Presidents’ Trophy in 2022 and now have back-to-back Stanley Cup Final appearances in 2023 and 2024. This is not an underdog team on a Cinderella run but a team that gradually worked their way into becoming a Cup contender over multiple years.
There’s a lot that can be said about how the Panthers built their roster, such as hitting on high draft picks, putting together blockbuster trades, or making smart waiver claims. For the moment, however, let’s look at one of the key ways that the Canucks are similar to the Panthers and one of the key ways in which they differ, looking at one of the most basic statistics in hockey: shots. Defensively, the Canucks achieved remarkably similar results to the Panthers this past sea.
