Give a warm round of applause to everyone's favourite team, your 2025 Stanley Cup Champions, the Florida Panthers!

In convincing fashion, they beat Edmonton 5-1, to take the series in six.

The Panthers are going to be looking to run things back next year, and not in the way that the Maple Leafs do. This is a team that has all of their core locked up to reasonable deals, except for one of their top defencemen and a Conn Smythe winning second line centre. If Sam Bennett walks, then the replacement is an in-house promotion of Anton Lundell, and from there you replace the grit on the third line. Aaron Ekblad is the more difficult piece to replace, with his 23 minutes per game, 50-point scoring pace, and excellent play-driving metrics.

Top defencemen don't grow on trees, and that's why I expect him to stay. The Cats have won their two Cups, they can afford to pay Ekblad whatever he wants in order to keep the band (mostly) together. Bennett on the other hand has a chance to really cash in, possibly almost doubling his current $4.425 million salary.

*

Sam Reinhart opened the scoring in game six with a beautiful goal, stealing the puck from Bouchard, working around Ekholm, and scoring as he fell.

He added a second goal late in the second period, which made the game 3-0, and even with a period to go, it felt like the game ended there. Then he scored an empty netter to make it 4-0 midway through the third, and it really was the end… but not the end of his scoring, as he added one more empty-netter for a four-goal Cup-clinching game.

Matthew Tkachuk had the other goal for the Panthers. It feels like he's had a relatively quiet playoff, but he still has managed to put up 23 points in the 23 games the Panthers played. Between Bennett, Ekblad, and plenty of other headlines from Aleksander Barkov to Paul Maurice,

Sergei Bobrovsky may be turning 37 this summer, but he's having one of his best playoffs in years. However, father time catches up to everyone, and after all of the hockey over the last two years, this coming year could be a bit of a drop off for Officer Bob. It's too bad that he lost the shutout in the final minutes.

*

There was some chatter yesterday that Dante Fabbro and the Columbus Blue Jackets were closing in on a "four- or five-year contract worth approximately $20 million". The numbers make sense, as I had penciled Fabbro in at a $4 million cap hit on my cap-league fantasy tem where I own him. As a result, I can also tell you first-hand what a great find he was last year, especially in the stretch run where he totaled 12 points (including five goals) in 20 games (a 50-point full-season pace).

Fabbro was an excellent fit alongside Zach Werenski on the top pair, and it's not always easy to find someone who meshes well with your number-one defenceman, so Columbus should be locking him up as one of their first priorities this offseason.

Now, Fabbro likely won't hit the 50-point mark next season, and Werenski might not hit the point-per-game mark again, but the underlying numbers for the pair are all completely reasonable. Fabbro's shooting percentage is a little high, but only indicating an extra goal or two on the season. Fabbro is also heading into his 400-game breakout year, which is a trend we often see outside of the elite defencemen, so this could be the time for him to shine and hit the 30- and 40-point plateaus for the first time in his career.

*

After looking at each team's situation in net last week, I wanted to take that one step further and look at 3^rd string goalies who could be valuable fantasy assets this year if given an opportunity.

The most likely reason for a third stinger to come in would be because of an injury, as it only takes one mis-step for a goalie to be out for a couple months, and open up a real chance for a young guy to show he has what it takes.

Dennis Hildeby – Toronto Maple Leafs

The Leafs should be a playoff team again next year (changes or not) but the one interesting thing about their goaltending is just how injury prone both Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll are. Hildeby turns 24 in October, and is coming off of two fantastic seasons for the Toronto Marlies. Lots of baseline potential for both wins and ratios here if he sees some games.

Drew Commesso – Chicago Blackhawks

Looking at Hildeby's numbers, and then looking at Commesso's you see two very similar goalies who might have some similar upside. While Hildeby is closer to the NHL and would have a better team in front of him, Commesso was playing with less support in Rockford, and produced similar numbers to Hildeby despite also being a year younger.

Sebastian Cossa – Detroit Red Wings

Going another year younger, the 22-year-old Cossa also has two excellent years at the AHL level, and Detroit hasn't had the best track record with goalies over the past year… few years… decade? The spotlight of the present and the future should now be lighting up six-foot-six Cossa who could be the solution to one of Detroit's biggest instabilities of late. All that's standing in his way is a 37-year-old Cam Talbot, and a 33-year-old oft-injured Petr Mrazek.

Erik Portillo – Los Angeles Kings

One more goalie with a couple years in the AHL, and lots of potential, the 24-year-old Portillo did take a bit of a step back last year at the AHL level, but stopped 28 of 29 shots in his one NHL start. The Kings have an opening for the backup role at the moment, but it seems more likely that they let Portillo at least start the season at the AHL level rather than gifting him an NHL spot out of training camp.

Jet Greaves – Columbus Blue Jackets

We're not even sure at this point if Greaves is the number three, but based it off of name value on paper, he slots in there for the time being. When the Jackets had their season on the line a few months ago, Greaves was the one holding down the fort, pitching two shutouts and allowing only four goals through a five-game-in-eight-day stretch to the end of the year. Columbus would have to be crazy not to give him another look at some point this year, contracts be damned.

Cayden Primeau – Montreal Canadiens

As the oldest goalie on the list, and with the most career NHL games, the water is still murky when trying to see what Primeau's future holds. He really struggled in the NHL last year, putting up a 4.70 GAA in 11 games, but then in the AHL he really found his game, with a GAA under 2.0, and a save percentage of .927. There is some upside, and Jakub Dobes certainly doesn't have the backup job locked up yet.

One other thought while looking at Winnipeg: It's tough to bet against Connor Hellebuyck at this point, but he's now 32 years old, and has played at least three quarters of Winnipeg's games (60+ in a full season) every year since 2017-18. At some point, he's going to start to wear down, and they don't have anyone with real upside in their system. I wonder if that might be a priority for them in the draft this year.

It’s also interesting to see that the USA Olympic brass didn't want to tie their horses to Hellebuyck quite yet, with the reigning Hart and Vezina winner not being named as one of USA's first six players on the roster.

*

See you next Wednesday, and if you have any fantasy hockey questions or comments you can find me on BlueSky @alexdmaclean, as that's now my primary platform.