Florida Panthers media day recap: Ethan and Alex take five on Tkachuk, more

Hey, it’s Ethan Skullick with Alex Bombgartner here at Baptist Health Icelex where the Florida Panthers are holding media day after winning two consecutive Stanley Cups and they’re not backing away from a third. Aaron Ecklad talking today and saying we can talk about it. I mean, that’s the goal. So, they’re not shying away from anything, Alex. And they’ve got pretty much everybody of significance back uh bringing back Eklad, bringing back Marshon, uh bringing back Bennett and Bob Rosski, of course, in the last year of his contract. You asked the question about that today. But with Kachchuck out, we know he’s going to be out now until at least December. That’s what Bill Zto said today. Who’s going to fill in for this team and how do they get through that stretch? Well, luckily, you could probably pretty much expect right after the cup final. You knew you were going to be missing Matthew for a couple months. Reports came out about a month ago he was going to miss some time. and Bill Zoto confirmed that today. You’re going to have guys like Mackie Samskevage that played a big role during the regular season, but didn’t really get his footing in the playoffs. Obviously, a rookie. Sam Bennett talked about how good he looked and how good some of the other players thought Mackey looks. I highly would expect Mackey to slot in next to probably Bennett on that second line. And Kachchuck’s absence, look, you can’t replace Matthew Kachchuck. We saw that last year. He was a big player in the playoffs even when he was injured. He will be be he will be back though. It looks like about December is when you should expect him to start getting on the ice. I don’t know if he’ll start getting into games until then. Probably gear him up for about a month. The Olympics are going to be big and he’s probably going to want to be prepared for that. But, you know, you have your entire team coming back. Obviously, Brad Marshon resigning. He was a guy that wasn’t here when we talked last media day and when we made our cup final prediction, which we were correct on, and we’re going to do that again today. Yes. Um, but no, look, it’s the most stacked team in the league. They have everyone back. They have the same coaching staff, the GM, the players. It’s different in Florida now. We remember 10 years ago, not only a different fluctuation of players coming in, but it’s a different coaching staff. You know, different coaches every year. You talked to Aaron Eckat how many coaches he had when he got drafted here. Now it’s still Paul Mur, still Bill Zoto, and it’s still the same guys in the locker room. It’s the same team. It’s the same structure, and the results should be similar as the last couple of years. Yeah, we’re going to hear from Paul Maurice tomorrow. Uh I mentioned Babroski here at the beginning. You asked him about being in the last year of his deal. He’s got a new backup goalender uh that he knows very well, familiar with his father. That shows how old that Bob has gotten. And I asked him uh how many games he wants to play? He says, “Look, we’ll kind of go game to game on that, but he always wants to play every game.” Uh where are you with that in terms of uh of how much uh he should he should be playing this season? Denil Terasov obviously comes from Babrosski’s hometown. Bob idolized his father growing up, so there was a little bit of familiarity there. I mean, Bob said he’s in his prime. He feels good. He’s 36 years old, but you know, obviously Bob’s not going to talk too much about what’s going on next year in terms of contracts. That’s just the kind of guy he is. But he looks good. And I think you can expect the same as last season. Bob gears it up towards the end of the year. And I mean, he is 36, but he plays more like a 30-year-old. That was the great Leroy Hoard who just went by us from WQAM. So, uh, that’s why we got distracted a little bit. All right, we’re going to do it here. And this is for posterity. Last year, as you mentioned, you did get it right. How does the Stanley Cup uh playoffs play out this year and who ends up being the champion? All right, I didn’t predict who was going to win last year, so we’ll keep it similar. Florida on the East and I’m going Vegas, okay, on the West. I think they retoolled a little bit. Obviously, they get Mitch Marner. I think a new scenario could be good for him. And they have a very stacked team, two very similar style teams and the Panthers and the Knights. It’s going to be a rematch of the cup final from three years ago, but obviously this Panthers team is a lot different than the one that lost in five. That should be a good one. So that’s my early media day prediction. Vegas Golden Knights Florida Panthers 2026 Stanley Cup final. All right. And I I won’t let you go without this. If I was to tell you say the one team in the East that can knock the Panthers out of getting to the final, what would that be? Who would that be? I mean, it’s kind of hard not to say that Toronto that series went to seven. I know Florida outman 61 6-1 in, you know, two games at home or excuse me on the road over there. I just think, you know, hockey is such a random game and there’s so many like flukes. Brad Marshon doesn’t shoot the off of Morgan Riley in game three, then all of a sudden, you know, they’re down 03. The Leafs might be in the conference final. All right, for Alex Bombgartner, I’m Ethan Skolnick here at Baptist Health. We’re going to be here uh throughout training camp to check out the coverage on the Five Reasons YouTube channel and all of our other platforms.

Ethan Skolnick and Alex Baumgartner report from Florida Panthers media day.

#floridapanthers #NHL

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