Explain it? Andrew Brunette gave a small nod and earnest voice to the question of how the Florida Panthers got here — meaning, first place in the Eastern Conference, on the short list of the Stanley Cup contenders and such an all-around good story the franchise that’s never been on anyone’s marquee kicks off TNT’s new broadcast package Wednesday night.
“We play fast,” the Florida Panthers coach said. “We’re a puck-possession team. We’re built to play that way. The reason why is we’re four lines deep that can score every night, have a very active [defense] and great goal-tending.”
For all these decades, the annual question of mid-February has been if the Panthers would make the playoffs — and we know the booby trap that answer typically went down.
Now the question is if they can win the Stanley Cup.
Suddenly, the Miami Heat aren’t the first pick of local teams capable of winning a title.
The Panthers lead the league in shots and goals. They rank second with a plus-55 goal differential. They’re 23-3 at home. Jonathan Huberdeau is tied for second in the league with 64 points and, even more impressive, the Panthers have a league-high 10 players with at least 20 points.
Think of it: The Panthers haven’t won a playoff series in a quarter-century and now they have a team capable of winning it all. It’s the hockey version of Tom Hanks in the movie “Big,” — almost overnight, they’ve grown big with everyone coming to the same conclusions.
“It’s combination of a bunch of things,” forward Sam Bennett said. “Our team, I think every night we have one line that’s pushing our whole team. It’s not the same line ever night, which is a great to have.”
At Tuesday’s final practice of a two-week break, the Panthers had an embarrassment-of-riches five lines working — one over the game standard.
“I think all five could play on any team in the league,” Bennett said.
Gone are the days when Pavel Bure or Olli Jokinen carried the banner of the franchise alone.
“It’s hard to manage everybody’s expectations and everybody’s desires to want to play,” Brunette said of having such a deep team. “We’re going to have to ask guys to be a little selfless in the near picture of our group and where we’re heading.
“We’re going to need everybody at some point. It’s just going to be hard for a lot of guys to be patient.”
The Panthers end their two-week break Wednesday at Carolina. That’s fitting, because it’s a developed rival of theirs over the past year and TNT picked this game to start their NHL package.
“They’re pretty stacked,” defenseman Brandon Montour said of Carolina.
That’s the scouting report on the Panthers, too.
“I think it’s just the same thing,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of skill up front, our D’s been good, our goalies have been great and you need all that to win it.”
What the Panthers could use is another top-end defenseman. That’s where this depth will truly come into play over the next few weeks. General manager Bill Zito has shown a jewel-picker’s eye for turning uncertain pieces elsewhere — Bennett in Calgary, Sam Reinhart in Buffalo, Carter Verhaeghe in Tampa Bay — into great pieces with the Panthers.
Can he do it again? Solidify this defense for a big run?
If the change is sudden for us, it is for the likes of Bennett, who came to the Panthers near last season’s trade deadline and already has a career-high 21 goals.
“I came with an open mind,” he said.
That’s how to view the change in this team. In recent nights, as the rest of the league started up again, Brunette found himself watching late-night games involving Carolina and Minnesota, the Panthers’ opponents this week.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “It made for some restless nights.”
The new reality is it’s restless on the other side, too. The Panthers once were every team’s homecoming opponent. As the regular-season starts its homestretch, they’re a team that can win it all.
