Dave Hyde: What pressure? Panthers embrace their chance at three-peat.

Dave Hyde, South Florida Sun Sentinel on Sep 18, 2025

Published in Hockey

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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla.— There’s no better place in sports right now to understand the difference between champions and wannabes than the Florida Panthers, and no story better illustrates it than Bill Zito’s interview for the general manager job five years ago.

Zito asked a question inside an organization that had been flailing for decades which showed an ability to see what no one else does.

“How is this not a destination place?” he asked team executives. “It should be, right?"

He applied that vision to trades and coaches, and now that the Panthers are a destination team, he has another question.

“How can we get better?” he said Wednesday. “Because we know we have to get better.”

It’s easy to admire the Florida Panthers, because they spend so little time admiring themselves. They accomplished something rare in winning consecutive Stanley Cups, and now they start training camp by embracing the chance to do something rarer still by winning a third championship.

There’s no mincing words here or saying the playoffs are a long season away.

“We’re always going to talk about it,’’ defenseman Aaron Ekblad said.

“It’s why we’re here,’’ forward Brad Marchand said.

“We realize how special this group is,” center Sam Bennett said. “And we know that we have the chance to do something special here for … “

He paused here, and you waited for a LeBron-esque, “Not one, not two, not three …”

“ … quite a while,’’ Bennett said. “Everyone wants to be a part of that.”

The Kansas City Chiefs were the last pro team to attempt a three-peat. They failed last Super Bowl. The Tampa Bay Lightning were the last NHL team to attempt it. They lost in the 2022 final.

The Miami Heat’s Big Three won two straight NBA titles, as did Golden State Warriors a few years later. But you have to go back to the Los Angeles Lakers of Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant from 2000-02 to find any of the big four pro teams to win three straight championships

In hockey, you have to go back to the New York Islanders of the 1980s. They won four straight. The architect, Bill Torrey, has a banner hanging in the Panthers arena as their first president.

Zito says he has studied the history of champions, right down to reading books by Miami Heat president Pat Riley and NFL Hall of Famer Bill Walsh on how to sustain an organization. He’s perfected something Riley always espoused with any championship team: Keep it together as long as possible to the point of it cracking.

Losing players to age or money is generally how champions fade away, from these recent Chiefs to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, all the way back to the two-time champion Miami Dolphins of the early-1970s, who lost Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield and Jim Kick to the upstart World Football League.

Zito re-signed free agents Bennett, Marchand and Ekblad in the opening minutes of this offseason. Even Marchand said, “I didn’t think that was possible.”

Now the top three lines and five of the top six defensemen are back (Nate Schmidt signed with Utah). And they sound ready. Zito said he asked forward Sam Reinhart if the short offseason was long enough. “He said, ‘Oh, yeah,’ like he’s ready to go,’’ Zito said

“One of the things management has done a great job of is bringing in like-minded people to the room,’’ Marchand said. “You see it, it’s something to buy into. Some teams might be complacent after winning, not do as much work.

“You don’t see that here. Everyone was in the gym right away. It wasn’t one of those things of, ‘Are we going to take more time off?’ I think the biggest thing is people have the mindset that when you get a taste of it, you really want it again.

“There’s nothing that replicates it, nothing that can explain what a feeling it is to accomplish that goal.”

There will be different storylines this season. Matthew Tkachuk is out probably until midseason after surgery. Goalie Sergei Bobrovsky’s backup, Daniil Tarasov, is the son of Bobrovsky’s former idol back home in Siberia. The midseason Olympics will be a motivator as players want to make national teams.

Above those, beyond them, sits a chance a history with three titles.

“We’re not going to shy away from it,’’ Ekblad said. “It’s our goal, and we’re going to talk about our goal.”

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