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SUNRISE, Fla. — Brian Campbell has a message for Florida Panthers fans. You now can wear your gear proudly.
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For 10 straight seasons, the Panthers failed to make the playoffs. Last season, they were dead last in the Eastern Conference.
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But that all has changed. Helped by Campbell and several other new acquisitions, the Panthers wrapped up the Southeast Division title with a 4-1 home win over Carolina in Saturday’s season finale. They now head to the playoffs for the first time since 2000 (there was no season in 2004-05 due to the lockout) as the East’s No. 3 seed, meeting No. 6 New Jersey starting Friday at 7 p.m. ET at BankAtlantic Center.
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“If you told any fan from any league, 'I’m a Florida Panthers fan,' they’d laugh at you,’’ Campbell, a four-time All-Star defenseman, said of how it used to be. “Maybe you didn’t even say that. But now, [Panthers fans are] proud. They can say that. They can hold their head up and support the team.’’
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Their support was quite evident when the final horn sounded Saturday. Hundreds of rubber rats were thrown onto the ice.
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It was a nod back to 1996, when fans did that at Miami Arena. That’s when the surprising Panthers made the Stanley Cup Finals before losing 4-0 to Colorado.
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“I actually said to [Campbell], ‘It’s going to rain here right at the buzzer,’ and it did. A lot of rats,’’ defenseman Ed Jovanovski said. “It was good to see, and it definitely brought back some memories.’’
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Jovanovski is the only Florida player that skated for that 1995-96 team (he was traded in 1999 before returning for this season as a free agent). Jovanovski came back with the hope of helping steer the Panthers back into the playoffs.
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That’s what happened, as the Panthers clinched their spot last Thursday. Even though Florida plays in the weakest division in the NHL and had a hardly-dominant 38-26-18 record, that hardly matters to center Stephen Weiss.
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No Florida player has suffered longer than Weiss. He joined the team in 2001-02 and had went through nine straight seasons without a taste of the playoffs.
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“It’s pretty awesome,’’ Weiss said in the jubilant Panthers locker room after Saturday’s win while wearing a Southeast Division champion T-shirt. “A surreal feeling. It hasn’t been easy all year …. This team pushed hard, but we found a way to win and win the division. That’s what we wanted to do at the start of the year.
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“[The fans] deserve it. They have been great through the year, and over the past 10 years or so for sticking with us. So I’m happy for them.’’
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At one time, a Panthers fan was a kid in Lethbridge, Alberta, named Kris Versteeg. Not long after the team had entered the NHL in 1993, his mother gave him a Panthers T-shirt.
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“When you’re a little kid and you get to see a cool logo at the time when it came out and a cool name, and I think as a kid I enjoyed it,’’ Versteeg said.
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When Versteeg was 10, the Panthers unexpectedly made the finals. He said he “cheered for an underdog’’ during those playoffs.
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Well, Versteeg has grown up to become a Florida wing. He said he still has that Panthers T-shirt in a closet back home and might ask for it to be sent down as Florida tries to make another surprising run at the Stanley Cup.
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“Now, we’re an underdog again, and obviously I think we’re going to have lot of fans cheering for an underdog,’’ Versteeg said.
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While having won the division gives Florida the higher seed and home-ice advantage against New Jersey, the Devils do have the better record at 48-28-6. And New Jersey enters the playoffs having won six straight while the Panthers have lost five of six.
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But the Panthers did slightly outplay the Devils in four regular-season meetings. They picked up five points to New Jersey’s four, going 2-1-1.
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“It’s going to be a good series,’’ said Campbell, who, along with Versteeg, won a Stanley Cup with Chicago two years ago. “I feel we’re going to give ourselves a good chance …. I’m sure nobody is counting on us to win too much, and that’s fine by all of us. We know we have a chance and an opportunity to win that series.’’
Chris Tomasson can be reached at christomasson@hotmail.com or on Twitter @christomasson
