They have built the best team in the NHL. Now everybody will try to duplicate it.
The NHL, like all professional sports, tends to be a copycat league. When one team finds success, and especially sustained championship success, other teams are going to try and duplicate that approach. When it comes to the Florida Panthers, who have been the NHL’s most dominant team over the past four years with a Presidents’ Trophy win, three consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearances and now two consecutive championships, there are quite a few lessons that can be taken. And lessons that probably should be taken.
The Pittsburgh Penguins may not be in a position right now to take all of these lessons, but some of them can be stored away for when they become a contender again in future seasons.
You don’t need to build entirely through the draft
This is a big one for rebuilding teams to keep in mind, and it’s one for the Penguins to keep in mind as they look at the fact they have 30 draft picks (and potentially more) over the next three seasons.
Too many teams get into a rebuilding phase and simply wait for their prospects and draft picks to pan out.
Detroit has been notorious for this under Steve Yzerman. Nobody in Detroit ever wants to show an ounce of frustration with the rebuild because “we have to wait for the draft picks to pan out.”
It’s happening in Chicago right now, where so many are willing to be patient with a nightmare of a team because there are a lot of first-round picks you are waiting to find out about.
The Panthers only had five players on this year’s postseason roster that were drafted and developed by the team — Aleksander Barkov, Aaron Ekblad, Anton Lundell, Dmitry Kulikov and Mackie Samoskevich.
In Kulikov’s case, even though he was drafted by the Panthers, he ended up spending 10 years away from the team before returning in 2023-24.
Samoskevich is a good young player, but only appeared in four playoff games.
That doesn’t mean the draft isn’t important, because it is. It’s just mostly important for the absolute top of the roster.
Florida’s main drafted and developed contributors were top-two picks in Barkov (their No. 1 center and best overall player) and Ekblad (their No. 1 defenseman in terms of minutes per game). You still need to hit some home runs with picks at the top of the draft to help build the foundation. And while it is certainly possible to build depth around your stars through the draft, it doesn’t need to be the only way. You can complement those players — and add more stars — through free agency and trades.
Florida had plenty of examples of both, whether it be big-time free agent signings (Sergei Bobrovsky), big-time trades (Matthew Tkachuk, Brad Marchand, Seth Jones, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett), smaller, under-the-radar free agent signings (Carter Verhaeghe) or even waiver claims (Gustav Forsling).
The draft is important for establishing your core and getting your main players at the top of the lineup. NHL-level scouting also matters for building out the rest of the team around them. It matters a lot.
Don’t overpay the bottom of the lineup
This is an area where the Penguins have struggled since … well … their most recent championship team.
While the Panthers have made a ton of big-splash roster moves over the years to solidify the top of their lineup, they have been able to do so in large part because they don’t overspend on the bottom of the lineup.
I thought this was a great observation on their roster:
The Florida Panthers AGM(Sunny Mehta) was the pioneer of hockey analytics in the NHL space
They’re entire 4th line has AAVs less than $1M dollars, their 3rd pair has AAVs under $1.15M
They scored the most goals in a playoff run since 1993
They replace major parts of their…
— NYR Louie ™️ (@NYRLouie) June 18, 2025
Their fourth line averaging six figure contracts.
Their third-pairing defense barely averaging more than $1 million.
There was no Jack Johnson or Ryan Graves buried at the bottom of their defense.
They were not paying Noel Accairi $2 million.
They don’t really have any “bad” contracts.
There has been so much arguing about the state income tax thing when it comes to building their roster and the advantage that may or may not present under the salary cap, but the biggest cap advantage they have has simply been not overpaying for bad players or spending too much money on the bottom of the lineup.
Every dollar you can save there is another dollar you can spend on the top of the lineup.
Take big swings
Don’t play it safe. Don’t be content. Don’t be afraid to take a major swing for the fences when the opportunity presents itself.
When the Panthers lost in the first round after winning the Presidents’ Trophy, they took a huge swing by trading two key players in Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar for Matthew Tkachuk.
It has turned out to be one of the most impactful trades in recent NHL memory. While Huberdeau has mostly flopped in Calgary, Tkachuk gave the Panthers an in-his-prime, MVP-level player, while also helping to further build their identity. It’s been perfect in every way.
They took a couple more swings this season when they acquired Seth Jones from Chicago and Brad Marchand from Boston.
They had some LTIR and salary cap help to create the space, and they got lucky with Marchand pretty much forcing his way to Florida, but they were still willing to pay the price and spend the money and assets when the opportunity presented itself.