The Roaming Photographer: Florida Panthers

Photo Credit: https://sportslogospot.blogspot.com/2011/06/florida-panthers-
inspired-by-predators.html

Early years (1992 – 2000)

Blockbuster Video magnate Wayne Huizenga was awarded an NHL franchise for Miami on December 10^th, 1992, the same day The Walt Disney Company earned the rights to start a team in Anaheim that would become the Mighty Ducks. At the time, Huizenga owned both the newly founded Florida Marlins of Major League Baseball (MLB) and a share of the National Football League (NFL)’s Miami Dolphins. The entry fee was $50 million. Huizenga announced the team would play at the Miami Arena, sharing the building with the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Miami Heat, until a new arena was built. Offices for the team were only established in June 1993, while Vice President of Business Operations Dean Jordan conceded that “none of the business people, myself included, knew anything about hockey”(1). The new franchise would be the first professional ice hockey team in Miami since the folding of the Tropical Hockey League in 1939(2).

On April 20^th, 1993, a press conference in Ft. Lauderdale announced that the team would be named the Florida Panthers, with former New York Islanders general manager Bill Torrey as president and Bobby Clarke as general manager. The team is named for the Florida panther, an endangered species of large cat endemic to the nearby Everglades region(3). Once the logos and uniforms were unveiled on June 15^th, the team also announced its financial commitment to the panther preservation cause(4). Huizenga had held the Panthers trademark since 1991 when he purchased it from a group of Tampa investors who sought to create an MLB team in the Tampa Bay area(5).

The new franchise joined the NHL for participation in the 1993-1994 season, along with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim. The Panthers’ and Ducks’ roster were filled in both the expansion draft and the 1993 NHL Entry Draft in June 1993, hosted by Quebec City;(6,7) that draft produced ten players who would eventually be a part of the 1996 Eastern Conference-winning team(8).

The Panthers’ first major stars were former New York Rangers goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck, rookie Rob Niedermayer and forward Scott Mellanby, who scored 30 goals in Florida’s inaugural season. Their first game was a 4-4 tie on the road against the Chicago Blackhawks, while their first win was a 20- shutout of the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Thunderdome before a then-NHL record crowd of 27,227. The Panthers had one of the most successful seasons of any expansion team league history, finishing just two points below .500 and narrowing missing out on the final 1994 playoff spot in the East. Their first-year success was attributed mainly to the trap defense that first-year coach Roger Neilson implemented. This conservative style was widely criticized by NHL teams; some even suggested that the Panthers were ruining the game (10). While the team executives expected the audience to consist of mostly “snowbird” Canadians living in Florida, the Floridians soon embraced the Panthers. Helped by Miami’s other teams having middling performances, the club averaged 94% capacity at the 14,500-seat Miami Arena and sold 8,500 tickets in 100 days.

In August 1994, general manager Clarke left to work for the Philadelphia Flyers; Bryan Murray was brought in from the Detroit Red Wings as his replacement(11). Another close brush with the playoffs, finishing the lockout-shortened 1994-1995 season again in ninth,(12) Neilson was fired following an argument with Murray regarding Ed Jovanovski, whom the Panthers chose as the number one overall pick at the 1994 NHL Entry Draft.(13) Doug MacLean, who had been the team’s player development director, was promoted to coach.(13) The team then acquired Ray Sheppard from the San Jose Sharks and the NHL trade deadline and looked towards the playoffs for the first time.

The Rat Trick and a trip to the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals

A very unusual goal celebration developed in Miami during the 1995-1996 season. On the night of the Panthers’ 1995-1996 home opener, a rat scurried across the team’s locker room. Scott Mellanby reacted by “one-timing” the rat against the wall, killing it. That night, he scored two goals, which Vanbiesbrouck quipped was “a rat trick.” Two nights later, as the story found its way into the world, a few fans threw rubber rats on the ice in celebration of the goal. The rubber rat count went from 16 for the third home game to over 2,000 during the playoffs.(14)

In the 1996 playoffs, as the fourth seed in the East, the Panthers faced the Boston Bruins in the first round and won in five games. Bill Lindsay’s series-clenching goal is still a trademark image for the run the third-year franchise went on. The Panthers went on to upset the top-seeded Philadelphia Flyers in six games followed by the second-seeded Pittsburgh Penguins in seven (with Tom Fitzgerald scoring what would end up being the game-winning goal) to reach the Stanley Cup Finals against the Colorado Avalanche, another team making its first Finals appearance.(15) The Avalanche, however, swept the Panthers in four games. Despite losing in the Finals, the Panthers set a record for the most wins by an expansion team in their first postseason appearance with 12 victories (this record would later be broken by the Vegas Golden Knights during their inaugural season in 2017-2018). For his team’s surprising success, Bryan Murray was honored as NHL Executive of the Year. (16)

The Panthers began the next season with a 12-game unbeaten streak but faded in the second half of the season after trading second-line center Stu Barnes. They lost in five games in the first round of the playoffs to the Wayne Gretzky-led New York Rangers. The team would plummet in the 1997-1998 season. After a 7-12-4 start, the Panthers first Doug MacLean, replacing his for the season with general manager Bryan Murray. The change did not aid matters, as Florida posted a franchise-worst 24-43-15 record, including a 15-game winless streak. This season also marked the end of goaltender John Vanbiesbrouck’s time in Florida; amid that streak, he was shelled by the Chicago Blackhawks and never played another game for the Panthers. In the following off-season, Vanbiesbrouck signed with the Flyers as a free agent.

1.
https://web.archive.org/web/20131105212732/http://sportsillustrated.cnn .com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1009015/1/index.htm

2.
https://books.google.com/books id=5g_r5MsuEf4C&dq=%22Tropical+Hockey+League%22&pg=PA124