Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as “The Hockey Maven,” shares his humor and insight with readers each Wednesday. The beginning of NHL training camps this week presents a look at how key preseason decisions led to Stanley Cup triumphs for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1947 and Florida Panthers in 2024, and perhaps Florida trifecta next June.<\/p>\n
Can a training camp be a major factor in helping a team win the Stanley Cup?<\/p>\n
It certainly can.<\/p>\n
It did in 1946 for the Toronto Maple Leafs and 2024 for the Florida Panthers. Though each camp was conspicuously different from the other, the results were the same, a Stanley Cup championship.<\/p>\n
When the Maple Leafs opened camp for the 1946-47 season, general manager Conn Smythe had little hope for winning the Cup after missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs the season before.<\/p>\n
“There are too many old men on our team,” Smythe said.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Panthers GM Bill Zito took a different tactic when the first-time Stanley Cup champions practiced last September at Baptist Health IcePlex. Zito believed that with judicious replacements, and perhaps a major trade, they could repeat as champs.<\/p>\n
The plan worked to perfection. Florida acquired Brad Marchand<\/a> from the Boston Bruins and Seth Jones<\/a> from the Chicago Blackhawks before the NHL Trade Deadline on March 7.<\/p>\n “The Panthers have grown into a team with no soft targets,” wrote David Dwork in “The Hockey News Yearbook” previewing the 2025-26 season. “They will beat you with their skill and physicality.”<\/p>\n After free agent defenseman Nate Schmidt<\/a> signed a three-year contract with the Utah Mammoth on July 1, the Panthers signed Jeff Petry<\/a> to a one-year deal. Undrafted defenseman Uvis Balinskis<\/a> is back at camp after his playing time was limited once Jones arrived March 1.<\/p>\n The Maple Leafs discovered speedy right wing Howie Meeker and signed him to a free agent contract April 13, 1946. Meeker would win the 1947 Calder Trophy given to the NHL rookie of the year and contribute to Stanley Cup-winning teams in 1947, ’48 and ’51.<\/p>\n “Meeker was a sassy little guy who stood no more than [5-foot-8],” wrote Jack Batten in “The Leafs in Autumn.”<\/p>\n “He worked out beautifully from the start of camp and ignited the team.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Legendary hockey reporter Stan Fischler writes a weekly scrapbook for NHL.com. Fischler, known as “The Hockey Maven,” shares…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":149747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-149746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}