So this is going to be a different approach to my articles on DolphinsTalk. Still the same structure, but I wanted to compare the recent struggles of the Dolphins to the struggles of the Florida Panthers, who are going for their second straight Stanley Cup Championship tonight against the Edmonton Oilers at Amerant Bank Arena. I have three reasons why they can learn from the Panthers, so let’s take a Deep End Dive into how the Miami Dolphins can learn from the Florida Panthers.
Building Championship DNA
This is something that takes time to build a championship culture, and that is something that occurred when Matthew Tkachuk was traded to the Panthers in 2022. They also built that championship core around their top players, Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad, as well as getting guys like Carter Verhaeghe, Sam Bennett, Sam Reinhart, and Gustav Forsling. They also have depth top to bottom, with their third line possibly being a top line on most teams.
Who is responsible for this masterpiece of a team, you ask? Well, that would be Panthers general manager Bill Zito. Zito is probably the Howie Roseman of the National Hockey League. He is that good at finding guys that fit the culture of the team and the style of hockey that they play. You may ask how this relates to the Dolphins.
Well, they have recently been saying they want to change their culture, but do they really mean it? They would need to prove it on Sunday for me to see that they are actually changing their culture. This is why I am explaining how the Florida Panthers built their team over the last twelve years. I am not saying this Dolphins team will take as long as the Florida Panthers did to win championships, but they need to actually show me rather than tell me. Another thing I forgot to mention is Chris Grier has a role in this as well, since he is the general manager of the Dolphins currently. What the Panthers did was ditch Dale Tallon in favor of Bill Zito, and look at where they are now.
The Panthers just needed some tweaks to their roster to make them a destination franchise in the National Hockey League. So that is what it takes to build a championship DNA from the Panthers’ eyes.
Hiring The Right People
The Florida Panthers, when compared to the Dolphins, have hired far better people for the jobs that they are doing, and it starts with their head coach, Paul Maurice. Maurice is already a Hall of Fame head coach, and he further cemented himself as one, winning the Stanley Cup last year and possibly tonight. They also hired the right general manager to replace Dale Tallon after he left, and that, as I mentioned in the last segment, was Bill Zito.
It starts with ownership that actually wants to win, and that is Vincent Viola, who is the owner of the Florida Panthers. Viola has done an outstanding job with hiring, and that is something Stephen Ross could only wish he knew how to do over the course of his tenure as Dolphins owner since 2009. Stephen Ross has gone through like four head coaches in the last decade. The only reason the Panthers went through technically three is because of the scandal involving Joel Quenneville.
Then, Andrew Brunette was the interim coach while the Panthers searched for their actual coach. That is how you run an organization, not like the dysfunction and the delusional that is the Dolphins over the last twenty-five years. This is why the Dolphins can never get it right with their coaches ,especially and the players they bring in. This is especially the case when the Dolphins have been average at best, and is why they beat up on bad teams and get exposed against the elite or good teams. I digress, as that has been the segment of hiring the right people, as I could go on and on comparing the two South Florida teams hiring the “right people”.
Definition of Insanity
The Dolphins can not keep getting away with the same mediocre records each season, and this is what the definition of insanity is: basically doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That is what they have been doing over the last three years since 2022. They thought they had a championship team when they really did not, because, as we have seen many times before, injuries happen.
The Dolphins just do not have any depth whatsoever. Their ceiling is only if they are fully healthy or when their core players are healthy. The Florida Panthers have this, and hockey obviously is a very different sport from football. The Dolphins just kept trying to do the same thing with the same players, expecting to do well, and then they got an eight-win season in 2024, basically handed to them like Here is eight wins for you. Good luck making the playoffs, where you are probably not going to last one game.
That is something the Dolphins just have to learn and that is how to win in the playoffs but if they keep doing the same thing and adding guys that can contribute right away that fits their style of football just like the Florida Panthers style of hockey then they will likely finish with the same record possibly worse than 2024 and that is a harsh reality that us Dolphins fans have been through too much over the last not just twenty five years but also the last fifty two years the last time the Dolphins won the Super Bowl.
I do not know if they keep doing the same thing over and over, or whether they will get to where they want to be. But that is how I view the definition of insanity in terms of how the Dolphins have it and how the Florida Panthers do not, though they used to, but now they do not.
How Can The Dolphins Be Like The Florida Panthers
The Dolphins can basically be like the Florida Panthers if they simply get better at scouting out those diamonds in the rough players that no one is really looking at and that fit their game. The Panthers have now become a destination franchise in the National Hockey League because of this. They built this basically from the ground up, and in hockey, you have to draft your cornerstone players, for example, Aaron Ekblad and Sasha Barkov, and then fill out your roster as needed with guys that fit your culture and style of play. The Dolphins can absolutely do this and not just randomly pick out, for example, Tyreek Hill and all the Kansas City Chiefs have done since winning back-to-back Super Bowls and making three straight.
So, if you ask me, the Chiefs may have won the trade because the Dolphins have not been as good as we thought they would be when the trade took place in March of 2022. The Dolphins in 1984 had cornerstone players like Mark Clayton and Mark Duper, Dwight Stephenson, and, of course, Dan Marino. Why do I mention the 1984 Miami Dolphins? That team had an identity and a culture that propelled them to a fourteen-win season in 1984, and to this day, their most recent Super Bowl appearance, where they lost to Joe Montana and the 49ers.
The Florida Panthers have recently done this, though the Dolphins have not in the last forty-one years since their last Super Bowl birth. They need to find those cornerstone players that can be on this team for the future and help the team win now and in the future. That is what it takes to win consistently in the NFL, something Stephen Ross has preached before, but it has not really happened yet. But that is my take on how the Miami Dolphins can be like the Florida Panthers in terms of how they can get better at what they do in building a real championship team that is sustainable, whilst using examples like the 1984 Dolphins that went to the Super Bowl.
Dolphins vs. Florida Panthers Comparison: In Summary
The Dolphins and the Florida Panthers have had similar fan bases over the course of the last twenty-five years.
However, the Panthers have simply done a better job at building a championship team that is sustainable. That is something the Dolphins can only hope they know how to do at the level of the Florida Panthers. I discussed how the Panthers had the championship DNA that the Dolphins did not. Then, how the Dolphins were doing the definition of insanity, doing the same thing and expecting something else. Lastly, I mentioned how the Dolphins can be like the Florida Panthers but differently, since it involves football and not hockey, even though the Dolphins can do it similarly to the Panthers. In summary, the Florida Panthers have simply done a better job at building a championship-caliber team than the Miami Dolphins. Will the Dolphins learn from their past and from their fellow South Florida team, especially after tonight? That is something, just like always with the Dolphins, I have to see them do it to believe it.
