The Hockey Letter: The Panthers are historic

The passing of the Stanley Cup is one of hockey’s most unique traditions. The Commissioner to the Captain, but from there it’s up to the skipper to decide who hoists Lord Stanley next.

Most of the time, the order is pretty predictable. The skipper will often hand it to the team’s longest-serving player, while other times it goes right to the club’s MVP.

But these Florida Panthers are built differently.

If you were to poll every person in Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday night and ask who they thought would be the second Panther to lift the Cup, you’d likely get a couple of pretty strong favorites.

Sam Bennett, the Conn Smythe Winner, Brad Marchand, the former rival who has fit in like a glove with this group, or maybe Aaron Ekblad, the longest-serving Cat, and one who could have just played his last game for the franchise. Sam Reinhart, who just scored four goals in the clincher, would have been a popular pick, too.

Very few people, you’d assume, would land on Nate Schmidt.

Signed by the Panthers last July on a one-year, $800,000 contract, Schmidt tallied 19 points in 80 games while playing third-pair minutes for the Cats.

On a team full of stars and big personalities, Schmidt was the player that Barkov sought out.

Not only was Schmidt the player on the roster with the most games played (742) without winning the Stanley Cup, but he was also the one who had come the closest without ever lifting it.

After playing 200 games with the Washington Capitals from 2013 to 2017, Schmidt was selected off the Caps’ roster by Vegas in the Expansion Draft.

As fate would have it, the Knights and Capitals met in the 2018 Stanley Cup Final, with Washington coming out on top.

Schmidt played two more seasons in Vegas before being traded on Oct. 3, 2020, to the Canucks.

Three years later, Schmidt was playing in Winnipeg — still on the contract that he signed with the Knights in 2018 — when Vegas defeated Florida in the 2022-23 Stanley Cup Final.

After another season in Winnipeg, Schmidt had the last year of his contract bought out by the Jets, making him a free agent.

That turned out to be a stroke of good fortune, as it allowed him to sign with the Panthers. The deal flew under the radar, so much so that Sportsnet didn’t even assign a byline to the story about Schmidt heading to Sunrise.

But it was Schmidt, before Bennett, Marchand, Ekblad, or Reinhart, who was given the honor of being the second player to touch the Stanley Cup.

Schmidt skated it around, and to the surprise of anybody who pays attention to this stuff, started a relay of players who were not on the roster when Florida won the Stanley Cup last June.

The Cup went from Schmidt to Seth Jones, Tomas Nosek, Vitek Vanecek, A.J. Greer, Jesper Boqvist, Mackie Samoskevich, Uvis Balinskis, and Jaycob Megna.

Megna, who played eight games for the Panthers in the regular season and none in the playoffs, would then pass it to third-string goaltender Evan Cormier.

Cormier, who was with the team as a Black Ace, has never played an NHL game. He’s spent the entire 2024-25 season with the Savannah Ghost Pirates of the ECHL.

And yet, it was Cormier who got to pass the Stanley Cup to Brad Marchand.

Over the next four months, the hockey world will dissect the Florida Panthers and try to figure out — and mimic — how this team climbed the mountaintop.

Jaded members of the hockey community will whine about taxes, while others will point to the drafting of Barkov, plus the acquisitions of Matthew Tkachuk, Bennett, and Reinhart.

But if you really want to know why the Panthers are so special, all you need to do is watch Evan Cormier, who is unlikely to ever play an NHL game, pass the Stanley Cup to future Hall-of-Famer Brad Marchand.