Maurice, Okposo and Ekman-Larsson among Panthers veterans searching for first Stanley Cup

EDMONTON —  The Florida Panthers can make history on Saturday night in Edmonton.

Holding a 3-0 series lead over the Oilers, their next win means they’ll take home the Stanley Cup — the first in the team’s 30 year history.

All but two players on the Panthers are searching for their first Stanley Cup; Vladimir Tarasenko (2019, St. Louis) and Carter Verhaeghe (2020, Tampa) being the only guys with rings on the roster.

While everyone on the team wants it, 17-year NHL veteran Kyle Okposo might be more desperate than others to lift Lord Stanley’s Cup. 

Okpsoso, 36, had been the Buffalo Sabres’ captain since 2022-23. In what could possibly be the final year of the NHL veteran’s career, Okposo wanted a chance to play for the Cup — so he requested a trade to Florida at the 2024 NHL Trade Deadline. 

 “It’s been a journey, that’s for sure. Obviously been in the league for parts of 17 seasons now and had a lot of ups and downs, personally and team wise. But over the last few years trying to turn buffalo around and get that organization going in the right direction, It was definitely challenging but extremely rewarding at the same time,” Okposo said of his career. “This year I wanted to make sure that I was going to put myself in a position — no matter what — to play in the playoffs and compete for a Stanley Cup. I wasn’t going to compromise in that goal. It was a difficult decision for me to do, but I felt like Florida was going to give me the best chance to reach the ultimate goal and now I just have to take it one more game at a time.”

Over the course of his career appeared in 1,054 NHL regular season games — but had only seen 24 postseason games — the last being in 2016 with the New York Islanders .

Before joining the Panthers in March, Okposo went eight years between playoff experiences, but the drive was always there for him to get back there and make a run at in. 

“I think it’s something that’s interesting in our league that if you don’t have playoff success a lot of the times that’s looked at as a negative when so much of this league is timing and the teams that you play on through no fault of our own as players sometimes,” Okposo said when asked about his lack of playoff success. “You have to look at the person and you have to look at the type of player that they are and if they’re capable of being part of a team…Sometimes they (players) get labeled as ‘oh we don’t want this guy because they haven’t played in the playoffs’ . Well there’s so many guys that haven’t played in the playoffs that would be absolute dogs in the playoffs and I think that we have a team that has a lot of dogs.”

If the Panthers were to win it all, Okposo would become the 20th player in NHL history to play more than 1,000 regular-season games before winning his first Cup. 

“For me personally, I’ve just been soaking up everyday and just trying to consume the moment,” Okposo added.

Like Okposo, Oliver Ekman-Larsson is another NHL veteran who has long awaited his chance to play for the Stanley Cup.

The 32-year-old defenseman played in 982 NHL regular-season games — the second most on the Panthers — across his 14 season career. 

A former captain himself with the Arizona Coyotes, Ekman-Larsson went from being at the lowest point in his career after the Vancouver Canucks bought out the remainder of his $19.3M contract — the largest ordinary buyout in the NHL’s salary cap era. 

One day before the one year anniversary of the buyout, Ekman-Larsson will be playing for a chance to lift the Stanley Cup. 

“I’m just super, super happy to be in this situation,” Ekman-Larsson said. “Obviously having a couple rough years in Vancouver — getting bought out– but I think just to be in this position with this organization, this team, there’s so many special guys in that room. I think we’re just trying to take one day at a time, soak it in and have fun with it.”

Okposo and Ekman-Larsson aren’t the only players with plenty of NHL experience on the Panther that are looking for their first Cup. Dmitry Kulikov — a Panthers draft pick in 2009 — and Sergei Bobrovsky both have been in the NHL for over 14 seasons, while Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad have been with the Panthers for the better part of a decade. 

But the man that has been searching for his Cup the longest is their coach, Paul Maurice. 

Maurice, 57, got his first NHL coaching gig in 1995-96 with the now relocated Hartford Whalers (moved to Carolina in 1997). 

The Sault Ste. Marie native has coached the second most games in NHL history with 1,848 and is fourth in wins with 869. His 24 season NHL career is certainly Hall of Fame worthy, but he is still looking for the ultimate prize.

“I need to win one,” Maurice said last week when speaking of his career and his desire to win the Cup. 

With Game 4 just hours away, the Panthers can win the first Cup in their franchises’ history and become the first team to do so in a sweep since the Detroit Red Wings in 1998.  

“If you can’t enjoy this morning, what the hell are you doing, what’s the point of this thing?” Maurice said the morning of Game 4. “The feet are flying underneath this table. There hasn’t been a lot of days in here so, we have to keep this in context, right? It’s 11 o’clock in the morning, my brain’s going to shift pretty hard in about four hours, and it won’t be conversations and casualness by any means. But I’ve been selling ‘enjoy your day’ for two years here, probably before that, and I believe it. I’ve had enough of the other days that aren’t good and I’m damn well going to enjoy morning skate on a day like today. I refuse not to be in a good mood. “

Game 4 will be on June 15, 6 p.m. MT, 8 p.m. ET from Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.