Forward Ron Francis won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and 1992, Bowman coaching those teams, too, before the Penguins lost a seven-game Division Final to the New York Islanders in 1993, the clincher in overtime. A Hall of Famer who today is president of hockey operations for the Seattle Kraken, Francis looks at the Panthers today with a view of been there, done that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an old saying: You never count the champs out until they\u2019re out,\u201d Francis said of the defending two-time Cup winner\u2019s challenge. \u201cNo matter what people think about it, they were champs for a reason. They found a way to win when it was hard and they know how to win in those difficult times when other teams are trying to knock them off the pedestal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving gone through it, well, I don\u2019t know if it makes it easier but you know you\u2019ve been there and know you can do it. There\u2019s a little bit more comfort in that locker room when someone is chasing you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rugged 2025 playoff road and short summer doesn\u2019t smooth the road for the Panthers\u2019 bid to win a third consecutive championship.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a grind playing almost every other night for two months at that level of play in the playoffs,\u201d Francis said. \u201cWhat people don\u2019t talk about is the mental challenge. You\u2019re playing a hockey game, then trying to get yourself down so you can rest, and 48 hours later you\u2019ve got to get yourself elevated again to play at that level. You\u2019re not doing that once or twice, you\u2019re doing it over a multi-month period.\u201d<\/p>\n
Francis said he believes the 1993 Penguins, a team that failed to win the Cup, \u201cwas still the best team I played on. We had 17 (consecutive) wins down the stretch, before shootouts, and that\u2019s still the record today. Did that hurt us a little in the playoffs? I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst and foremost, you need things to bounce and go your way to win the Cup. In 1991 and 1992 I can point to some things that went our way and then didn\u2019t go our way in 1993. There are so many good teams today, so many things have to go your way, so many guys have to stay healthy. That\u2019s what makes it so tough.\u201d<\/p>\n
Top photo: With coach Paul Maurice behind them, Aleksander Barkov (r.) and Matthew Tkachuk of the Florida Panthers celebrate after defeating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 to win the Stanley Cup on June 17, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Forward Ron Francis won the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and 1992, Bowman coaching those…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-191090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}