Thanks to their 6-2 win on Saturday night, the Florida Panthers are just one win away from their third consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearance.

When Nate Schmidt looks around the Florida Panthers' locker room, he sees players who possess something he doesn't have. At least not yet. A Stanley Cup ring. Most of them won a ring last season when the Panthers hoisted the Cup for the first time in franchise history.

The rat-throwing tradition dates back to the Panthers’ third season as an NHL franchise. Ahead of Florida’s home opener in 1995-96, forward Scott Mellanby spotted a rat running through the team’s locker room. Mellanby then took his stick and slapped the rat, sending it flying into a wall and killing it.

He certainly is enjoying life, both on and off the ice. The hope is that another Stanley Cup is on the horizon. Lion and Adalee already got to experience it once, with Gadjovich and wife Allison putting both of them inside the Cup as the Panthers celebrated the victory last June.

The Panthers have routed the Hurricanes and Maple Leafs in their last four playoff games, causing opposing fans to boo their own team and leave games early.

Stanley Cup Playoffs have been a resounding success for Florida Panthers forward Carter Verhaeghe. The 29-year-old winger has been a fixture in the Pan

Before he scored midway through the first period of the Florida Panthers’ eventual 5-0 rout of the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final, the star winger had gone 10 consecutive games in these Stanley Cup playoffs without a goal — a number that caught captain Aleksander Barkov and coach Paul Maurice by surprise.

Carter Verhaeghe signed an eight-year extension after leading Florida with 11 goals in the 2024 postseason and 72 points in the regular season, following up that campaign with his fourth consecutive 20-goal season in 2024-25. Verhaeghe logged eight points (4-4-8) through two rounds in the 2025 postseason.