Why Brad Marchand’s teammates are shooting rats at him, injury updates, more Hurricanes-Panthers notes

RALEIGH, N.C.

Brad Marchand is known as the The Rat, so it was only fitting that when the longtime Boston Bruins forward was traded this season, his new team was the Florida Panthers, for whom a rat has effectively been a second logo ever since Scott Mellanby killed one in the home locker room then scored a Rat Trick 30 years ago in the 1995-96 season opener against the Calgary Flames.

Advertisement That year, fans began throwing plastic rats onto the Miami Arena ice after Panthers goals.

It became iconic as thousands flew onto the ice through a Cinderella run to the Stanley Cup Final in only the teams third year of existence.

Scalpers even cleared toy stores and drug stores of the plastic critters and sold them on the streets of Overtown before games.

The hurling of rats onto the ice created such long delays, the NHL eventually prohibited the practice.

So these days, Panthers diehards patiently wait until the end of the game to throw them to celebrate victories.

Now, with Marchand on board, a new ratty tradition has begun.

Teammates fire the rats at their resident Rat as they depart the ice after wins.

On Thursday night, after Floridas Game 2 win in the Eastern Conference final at Lenovo Center, a few Panthers fans in the rival barn threw rats on the ice, and captain Aleksander Barkov and Evan Rodrigues shot them at Marchand.

The @FlaPanthers celebrated their Game 2 victory by firing rats at Brad Marchand pic.twitter.com/3Awgk7ZabO Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 23, 2025 For home games, the Panthers coaches normally leave the ice through the tunnel behind their bench before the players depart the ice.

At Lenovo, the coaches must walk the ice to the corner exit.

So for the first time, Florida coach Paul Maurice got to see the tradition in action.

I heard about it.

Id never seen it, Maurice said.

I will tell you, theyre shooting them as hard as they can.

Theyre not flipping them at him.

Theres shrapnel around there, and I didnt have any equipment on.

I was just trying to get off the ice.

Like, it hurt.

But theyre eating them up at them, and hes trying to get out of the way.

It is funny as hell.

Maurice said that the time immediately after the game belongs to the players.

Every team has a clever player-of-the-game presentation.

It usually starts with some inside joke in training camp.

A few years ago, Maurice said Scott Tinkler who worked for the Panthers as an assistant equipment trainer and is front and center in the 1996 Prince of Wales Trophy photo from after the Panthers upset the Penguins ate an 80-ounce steak at a team outing.

That bone is what players handed out in the room after wins during the season.

Advertisement Those are all the really fun stories that are organic, Maurice said.

So now theyre ripping plastic rats off Marchy, and its funny as hell.

I dont know how it started, Rodrigues added.

But I think the first game he was here, we won, we ended up doing it and its just kind of a become a little bit of a thing.

No update yet on Sam Reinhart Panthers first-line right wing Sam Reinhart was injured late in the first period of Floridas 5-0 win to take a 2-0 series lead Thursday, and after he left, several players got looks next to Barkov and Rodrigues on the line.

That guy, you cant really replace, Barkov said.

He does everything.

But every single guy who played there was great.

Sam Reinhart is OUT for the rest of Game 2 after this hit from Sebastian Aho in the first pic.twitter.com/Xwjqj6Kxj7 B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) May 23, 2025 Added Carter Verhaeghe, We have such a deep team, and everyone can play with anyone.

We have so much skill up and down the lineup.

Guys that werent in the lineup have been playing really well for us over the playoffs.

Its a next-man-up mentality.

Sams obviously a huge part of our team, and hopefully hes doing OK, but the guys did a helluva job.

The Panthers spent the night in Raleigh and flew back to Fort Lauderdale on Friday morning.

Maurice said that Reinhart will be examined by doctors and that hell have an update on his status Saturday morning.

Carolina injuries Hurricanes defenseman Sean Walker and winger Seth Jarvis both left Game 2 with injuries, as well.

Coach Rod BrindAmour indicated to reporters on Friday that Jarvis will be fine but Walker is a little iffy, but better than I thought hed be, per Hurricanes.coms Walt Ruff .

Jarvis was injured late in the second period on a hit by Niko Mikkola and return briefly in the third but didnt play the final eight minutes.

Walker missed the entire third after a hit by A.J.

Greer early in the second.

AJ Greer NAILED Sean Walker and he was slow to get up pic.twitter.com/5hFv0bskKu Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) May 23, 2025 Canes need a better Svech For two series, Andrei Svechnikov was the Hurricanes most dangerous forward, scoring eight goals in their first 10 playoff games.

It felt like a major development for a team thats perpetually been in search of a true game-breaking forward.

Svechnikov, for years, has been their closest approximation.

Advertisement The efforts always been there, BrindAmour said before the series.

What youre seeing out of him here, through these two rounds anyway, has been hes impactful even when hes not on the scoresheet.

You just kind of notice him.

Whether hes on the scoresheet or not, hes just been impactful in the games.

On Thursday night, he was on the scoresheet just not in the right spot.

Two days after watching Sebastian Ahos retaliatory punch against Anton Lundell burn the Hurricanes, Svechnikov was the one taking the bait, taking a penalty for punching Matthew Tkachuk at 9:10 of the second period.

Shortly after, Sam Bennett scored to put Florida up 3-0.

Andrei Svechnikov interferes with Matthew Tkachuk and then gives him a shot to the back of the head pic.twitter.com/ooDbXLdReo Gino Hard (@GinoHard_) May 23, 2025 Earlier in the period, a bad set of decisions by Svechnikov in the defensive zone helped lead to the Panthers first goal, and a failed clear led to their second.

He finished minus-3.

My mistake totally, Svechnikov said.

Cant do anything right now, so (weve) gotta move on and think positively.

(The first period was) tough.

No question about it.

But it happens sometimes.

Youve just got to stay in control and stay positive.

In the first period, I didnt do it.

Svechnikov was asked how to avoid trying to do too much, given the Hurricanes increasingly dire reality .

It starts with me, he said.

Play simpler and Im sure it will be fine.

Shocking start to the series Many expected this to be a tight, low-scoring series, but the scores in Games 1 and 2 were 5-2 and 5-0.

Maurice insisted that wasnt indicative.

This is so much tighter than the score tells it is, he said.

This is not a flow series.

It never will be between these two teams.

Its a grind from one end, but its a fast grind.

Its not casual in that, you know, dump a puck and sit back.

Its the exact opposite of what both teams do.

They put it deep and they get after it.

Advertisement There is this is a Ralph Krueger word hecticity in the games.

Hectic.

Clearly, thats not a word, but Ralph uses it, and it describes this series and how we play against each other exactly.

Change of possessions, I dont even know if we can measure that, but theres an awful lot of change in possessions when we play them because the sticks are so good and theyre on the puck and theres no gap.

Theres not the comfort level that the final score tells you.

I will not feel comfortable going into Game 3, but thats how I live.

Offside review A pivotal moment early in the second period in Game 2 came when Gustav Forsling threw a puck out of the zone and it suddenly came back to Aho all alone in front of the net and he scored to make it 3-1.

But something didnt feel right to the Panthers video coaches.

It just felt like the play had to be offside.

But from the initial looks the Panthers got from the program feed, it wasnt clear if Tkachuk sent the puck back in or if Carolinas Brent Burns did.

Maurice called a timeout, ultimately challenged the play and the goal was wiped off the board after a review.

Sebastian Aho's goal comes off the board as the review rules that Burns touched the puck here, so offside #RaiseUp | #StanleyCup pic.twitter.com/p7LaYGwFOk Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) May 23, 2025 Its 3-nothing.

But 3-1 with 39 minutes left, youve got a problem, Maurice said.

The only thing we had is it didnt look right.

And we waited, waited, waited, and found the clip at the end.

Sometimes, we just dont get the video to prove what we feel.

So the timeout, you get Myles Fee in there going, Thats got to be an offside, but we cant prove it.

So thats the timeout.

We get then the blue-line camera zoomed in and we get one more look at it, and then it was pretty clear.

Advertisement Road warriors Maurice doesnt know why the Panthers are 7-2 on the road and have already scored 43 goals six off the 1993 Kings NHL record.

Last year, we were a pretty dominant road team.

This year we were good until about the last month and a half, and then kind of some injuries and stuff, he said.

I dont think that we feel any differently on the road.

The intimidation of the road game left our game 15 years ago.

I mean, it used to be different going on the road, and it has nothing to do the fans.

I think the buildings are louder.

Its just the structure of teams, the structure of lines.

It used to be if you got down 2-nothing at home, your fourth line didnt even ask if they were going out.

They just jumped over the boards.

And they didnt bring all their equipment with them.

It was on.

So its different now.

Still, it has to be a momentum builder to hear how much the Panthers have quieted down the road buildings in their past four wins, right? Maurice said no.

Weve had some dogs at home, had some tough ones, but our crowds are really good to us, he said.

I dont think that you necessarily gain anything on the road.

You just dont lose anything.

...

Theres a huge advantage to the home team in the emotional.

I dont think that the road team participates in that.

Like its quiet, we dont know.

The musics still really loud and theyre cheering and so we dont pick up on that.

But there can be a real advantage for the home team when they get something good to happen.

Depth scoring With Forsling scoring the winning goal Thursday, the Panthers now have 18 goal scorers in the playoffs.

Only four players who have played games dont have a goal Rodrigues (12 games), Tomas Nosek (seven), Nico Sturm (seven) and Mackie Samoskevich (four).

VIDEO! Inside the @FlaPanthers radio booth for Gus Forslings opening goal & eventual game-winner from Thursday nights Game 2 in Raleigh.

@560WQAM @RealRadio921 pic.twitter.com/Bx27e7jZNu Doug Plagens (@DougPlagens) May 23, 2025 While players have said nobody pays attention to who scores the goals as long as somebody does, Maurice did have a funny line to end his press availability Friday, saying, The guys that are in and out of the lineup that havent scored are going to get chirped pretty hard now.

The watch on everybody who hasnt scored is on.

(Photo: Kim Klement Neitzel / Imagn Images).

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