Sam Reinhart breaks 103-year streak in historic Stanley Cup-clinching performance

Photo Credit: ClutchPoints.com

As Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart fell to the ice, he watched his shot slowly trickle toward the empty Edmonton net. When the puck crossed the goal line, Reinhart had accomplished something that hadn’t been done in 103 years.

He scored four goals in a Stanley Cup-clinching game.

“It’s pretty special," Sam Reinhart said after the game. "I mean, we’ve had guys step up all postseason long. It almost takes the pressure off us knowing that someone’s going to do it."

Reinhart became the first player to do so since Babe Dye of the 1922 Toronto St. Patricks. Reinhart joined Dye, Mark Stone of the 2023 Vegas Golden Knights, and Jack Darragh of the 1920 Ottawa Senators as the only players to score three or more goals in a Cup-clinching contest.

Reinhart would get the scoring started less than five minutes into the game, scoring a beautiful individual goal. He stripped defenseman Evan Bouchard of the puck at the blueline, danced around defenseman Mattias Ekholm, and slotted his shot above goaltender Stuart Skinner’s glove while falling to the ice. Reinhart made a habit of scoring while falling in Game 6, scoring two of his four in that fashion.

The former second-overall pick (2014, Buffalo Sabres) got his second of the game as a result of intense, non-stop offensive zone pressure by the Panthers. Skinner awkwardly batted a high shot directly into the path of Aleksander Barkov, who banked his pass off the skate of Reinhart and in. This was Reinhart’s ninth goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, giving the home team a commanding 3-0 lead in the second period.

With not much happening offensively and nothing to lose, the Oilers decided to pull Skinner with more than seven minutes remaining in the third period. The Oilers couldn’t get much going with the six-on-five advantage, and the Panthers quickly pounced. Once again, Barkov, the Panthers’ captain, found Reinhart with a cross-ice pass. The forward rifled a shot into the empty net from right in front of the Oilers’ bench. Reinhart became the 40th player in National Hockey League history to score a hat trick in the Stanley Cup Finals. He and Stone (Vegas, 2023) are the only two active players to have accomplished this feat.

Panthers fans celebrated the hat trick, not just by throwing hats on the ice during the game, but also by littering Reinhart’s front lawn with hats the morning after the win.

Reinhart’s dad, Paul, a former NHLer (648 games), knows how much the Panthers organization means to his son and how integral he has been to their recent success.

“I’ve seen Sam evolve from a very good player to an elite player in the last couple of years, which is a testament to the people he is around, the organization, the work he’s put in, all of it,” Paul Reinhart told NHL.com. “But significant credit to him.”

If three goals weren’t enough, Reinhart would add his fourth of the game just over two minutes later. After tic-tac-toe passing with two of his teammates in the defensive zone, Reinhart carried the puck to the center ice red line and slotted a shot into the yawning cage as he was being tripped to the ice. Once the puck crossed the goal line, Reinhart etched his name into Stanley Cup Finals history, becoming the first player in 103 years to score four goals in a Cup Final-clinching game. Reinhart and Dye are the only two players in NHL history to do so.

The 29-year-old Canadian is no stranger to making history in the Stanley Cup Finals. He scored the game-winning goal in Game 7 of last year’s Cup Final against Edmonton, securing the Panthers’ first Stanley Cup in franchise history. For a while, it looked like Reinhart was going to score the game-winning goal in back-to-back Stanley Cup-clinching victories until Vasily Podkolzin scored the Oilers’ only goal of the game with less than five minutes to go. It was his teammate, Matthew Tkachuk, who was awarded the game-winning goal, scoring the game’s second goal with 47 seconds left in the opening period.

“If you’re Sam Reinhart, he scored a game-winner in Game 7 last year, and he banged in four (tonight),” said Panthers head coach Paul Maurice. “Nobody’s going to say if there was a goalie in the net, and nobody’s going to care. He just scored goals. That was a pretty good story.”

Reinhart (11 goals, 12 assists) tied Tkachuk (eight goals, 15 assists) and Carter Verhaeghe (seven goals, 16 assists) for the team lead with 23 postseason points. However, it was center Sam Bennett who won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Bennett finished one point off the team lead, but led the playoffs in goals with 15.

Reinhart acknowledged that this Cup was harder to win than last year’s because of the personal adversity he had to endure. Reinhart, who had 81 points in the regular season, missed two games during the Eastern Conference Finals due to a Grade 2 MCL tear. Despite lingering pain, he got back on the ice and was a key contributor against the Oilers. Reinhart scored seven goals in the Cup Final, the eighth most by a player in a single Stanley Cup Final series. Reinhart became the first player since Hockey Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky in 1985 to score seven goals in a Cup Final series.

“I can’t really put into words what it means,” said Reinhart. “It’s something you never really think about. You know, in a lot of instances, this one was even harder to overcome and be here at the end."

Since Reinhart was traded from the Buffalo Sabres to the Panthers on July 24, 2021, the Panthers have not missed the playoffs and have been to three consecutive Stanley Cup Finals, winning the last two, thanks in part to Reinhart’s heroics. Sending goalie prospect Devon Levi and a 2022 first-round pick (Jiri Kulich) to the Sabres in exchange for Reinhart was one of the many moves general manager Bill Zito made to make the Panthers a modern-day dynasty.

Reinhart, who missed the Panthers’ Stanley Cup parade last year due to a friend’s wedding, guaranteed he will be in attendance for this year’s, as his team and the South Florida community celebrate back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.

“I’m not going to miss this one,” Reinhart said. “I'll guarantee you that.”