Brotherhood and experience: How the Panthers finally won a Stanley Cup

“It starts with Billy, it trickles down to Paul and then the guys take over from there,” Panthers fourth-line forward Ryan Lomberg said. “Those guys are incredible leaders and they’re the ones who set the tone. People think it’s the players. It’s not. It comes from our coaches and management. They’re the ones who set the foundation, and then they let us take it over. That’s what it did. We’ve got so many incredible leaders, so many incredible characters, and that’s another shout out to Billy for bringing all these people in, but it takes a tremendous amount of character to accomplish something like this, and we’re just blessed that we have it in that room.”

And even as players come and go — Maurice made sure to mention the importance of players from last year’s Cup Final run that were no longer on the team like Radko Gudas, Eric and Marc Staal and Alex Lyon to helping “start the upward trajectory” — the unity inside the dressing room remains a constant.

“You’ve got to bring in the right people,” Maurice said. “You’ve got to have the right captain. How do I explain it to you? Okposo and Tarasenko — if you walked in the room, you would have thought they’ve played for us for 10 years, and it’s true. I had Anton Lundell tell me that last year. I said ‘What’s your favorite part about playing here?’ He said ‘I walked in the room the first day and they made me feel like I was part of the team.’ They did that for me, too — the new guy, old guy who couldn’t win.”

Bennett added: “It’s every single guy. You can’t pick one guy because every single guy was so committed to winning, so committed to doing whatever it took to win. I love this group. It’s a really special group.”

Now, the work begins to see if they can build on it. The NHL draft is on Friday and Saturday. Free agency begins on Monday. The Panthers have 11 players set to hit the open market — most notably Reinhart and defenseman Brandon Montour — unless deals can be struck before then.

But even with a lot of turnover expected, the core remains. Barkov and Tkachuk are under contract for six more years. Forsling just signed an eight-year extension. Forward Evan Rodrigues is signed for three more years. Bobrovsky and defenseman Niko Mikkola are signed for two more years. Ekblad, Bennett and Verhaeghe under contract for one more year. Team is trying to re-sign Reinhart — and Montour if possible. Lundell and defenseman Josh Mahura are restricted free agents.

But that said, there will be voids to fill in the room.

The pending free agents, beyond Reinhart and Montour: Forwards Tarasenko, Okposo, Lomberg, Nick Cousins, Kevin Stenlund and Steven Lorentz; defensemen Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Dmitry Kulikov; and goaltender Anthony Stolarz.

This year’s group won’t be together as one unit again. That’s the nature of sports and the annual roster turnover that comes with it.

But forever and always, they will be connected by being the team that won the Florida Panthers their first Stanley Cup.

“It’s incredibly lucky,” Lomberg said. “You look up at any building and the rafters and all it is is legends, champions. To be able to be a part of one of them is tough to put in the words. My favorite part about all this is that all these guys we did it with, we’re gonna be together forever in one way or the other. We’ll always be binded by being Stanley Cup champions.”