WASHINGTON — Vowing \u201cWe\u2019re not going to stop,\u201d the Florida Panthers brought the Stanley Cup to the White House again Thursday to be honored for their back-to-back championships.<\/p>\n
The Panthers accepted an invitation from President Donald Trump to attend the ceremony in the White House\u2019s East Room, flying to Washington for the afternoon before heading to Raleigh, North Carolina, to face the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday (7 p.m. ET; FDSNSO, SCRIPPS, SNO, TVAS).<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want to say on behalf of the organization and mainly the players, we\u2019re so honored to be here,\u201d Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk<\/a> said. \u201cBeing an American, I know I said it last year, nothing beats this. I\u2019m so proud to be an American and so proud be here.\u201d<\/p>\n Like when the Panthers visited the White House last year to be honored for their 2024 Stanley Cup championship, Tkachuk gave a brief speech during the ceremony, as did owner Vincent Viola.<\/p>\n \u201cI speak on behalf of every Florida Panther fan all over the world,\u201d Viola said. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to stop. We\u2019re not going to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n Tkachuk, captain Aleksander Barkov<\/a> and defenseman Seth Jones<\/a> gifted the President with a \u201cTrump 47\u201d Panthers jersey, a gold stick, and Stanley Cup rings from each of the past two seasons before heading to the Oval Office with him for some more photos. In presenting the gold stick to President Trump, Tkachuk remarked that it was \u201cgood for slashing.\u201d<\/p>\n President Trump lauded the Panthers’ \u201caura of winning\u201d for repeating as champions last season by again defeating the Edmonton Oilers in the Stanley Cup Final.<\/p>\n \u201cNot only did you live up to the sky-high expectations, you gave us perhaps the most dominant playoff run in NHL history,\u201d President Trump said.<\/p>\n President Trump went through the Panthers\u2019 long list of accomplishments, including winning the Presidents\u2019 Trophy as the NHL\u2019s top team in the regular season in 2021-22 and three consecutive trips to the Stanley Cup Final before wondering out loud how they lost to the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2023 Cup Final.<\/p>\n \u201cYou should\u2019ve won that, too,\u201d President Trump said.<\/p>\n Trump praised Viola, general manager Bill Zito and coach Paul Maurice for their accomplishments along with a host of players, beginning with forward Sam Bennett<\/a>, who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The president also pointed out the contributions of forwards Sam Reinhart<\/a>, who scored four goals in Florida\u2019s repeat-clinching 5-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final, Brad Marchand<\/a>, Tkachuk and Barkov, defensemen Aaron Ekblad<\/a> and Jones, and goalie Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cAn incredible two straight Stanley Cup victories and I just want to congratulate their unbelievable players,\u201d President Trump said. \u201cThey have something different because I watched some of the games and it looked like it was going to be tough, and you blew them out.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida has been hampered by a slew of injuries this season in its bid to become the first team to win the Stanley Cup in three consecutive seasons since the New York Islanders\u2019 run of four consecutive championships from 1980-1983. Tkachuk has yet to play after having offseason surgery to repair a torn adductor muscle and sports hernia, but he could make his season debut against the Hurricanes on Friday.<\/p>\n The Panthers have also been without Barkov (knee), Marchand (undisclosed), Jones (upper body), forwards Jonah Gadjovich<\/a> (upper body), Tomas Nosek<\/a> (knee) and Cole Schwindt<\/a> (arm), and defenseman Dmitry Kulikov<\/a> (upper body). Through its first 45 games, Florida (24-18-3) entered Thursday trailing the Buffalo Sabres and Boston Bruins by three points for the two wild cards into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n \u201cLike I said last year, winning, it takes a toll,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201cYou pay a price for it and each one of these members behind me, it really does take a village to make it happen. Each person played a very, very important part, and coming down to Florida, thanks to Vinnie Viola and Bill Zito, has really changed my life and I cannot believe that the three years we got two Stanley Cups and, like Vinnie said, we\u2019re not stopping now.<\/p>\n \u201cWe hope to be here next year. So, that\u2019s the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n President Trump also noted that Tkachuk and Jones will represent the United States at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 next month, along with Zito, who is part of the U.S. management team as an assistant GM, and head equipment manager Teddy Richards, who will also serve as the Olympic team\u2019s equipment manager.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re counting on you to bring home the gold,\u201d President Trump said.<\/p>\n Tkachuk said representing the U.S. in the Olympics \u201cwill be one of the highlights of my life.\u201d Viola pointed out that the Panthers will also be represented at the 2026 Olympics by Reinhart (Canada), Marchand (Canada), defenseman Uvis Balinskis<\/a> (Latvia), defenseman Gustav Forsling<\/a> (Sweden), forward Anton Lundell<\/a> (Finland), forward Eetu Luostarinen<\/a> (Finland) and defenseman Niko Mikkola<\/a> (Finland).<\/p>\n Barkov (Finland) was also selected to play, but he will miss the Olympics because he\u2019s still recovering from his injury, which he sustained during the first practice of training camp.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re right up there having the most Olympians, Olympic players, as much as any other team in the NHL,\u201d Viola said. \u201cThere are 10 Olympians behind me from four or five countries. It\u2019s a great testimony to a wonderful sport that really is a global sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON — Vowing \u201cWe\u2019re not going to stop,\u201d the Florida Panthers brought the Stanley Cup to the White…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-410055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410055\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}