Scoring four goals in Game 6 of the 2025 Stanley Cup to secure the team’s second-straight championship, Sam Reinhart is unpacking the mindset behind his and the Florida Panthers’ success.
Traded by the Buffalo Sabres to Florida in 2021, Reinhart has been a key component to the Panthers’ back-to-back championships. In 2024 he scored the game winning goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup, securing the team’s first NHL championship. Reinhart’s four goals in Game 6 of the 2025 Stanley Cup mark the most scored by any player in a single Stanley Cup game since Rocket Richard scored as many in Game 1 of the 1957 Stanley Cup.
“Doing it again was in some instances easier, and in a lot of instances a lot harder,” Reinhart reflected on winning back-to-back championships. “The mental grind was a lot harder this year, especially at the start of the playoffs and end of the season. There’s different spurts throughout the year that are really challenging, partly because you know how tough it is and you are so tired at the end of the day, and you keep pushing. But we were able to persevere again.”
In winning the 2025 Stanley Cup, the Panthers became just the tenth team in NHL history to win back-to-back championships. Recognizing the accomplishment during a celebratory shift at the Raising Cane’s in Tamarac, Fla., Reinhart explained that the team’s 2024 victory provided confidence to this year’s roster.
“Every time you go through something, you’re that much more comfortable the next time,” he said. “It was such a battle again, but we felt confident the whole time.”
Reinhart also explored the role sport psychologists and mindset coaches played in the team’s victory.
“We’ve got someone great with the team, Derick Anderson,” he said. “Most of that side is my team back home who I’ve worked with forever. A lot of it is physical, but I’ve always said that it’s getting my body in the right spot and if I’m going to be prepared that way, my mind is going to follow.”
What actually goes through an NHL player’s mind, then, during a night they score four goals in a Stanley Cup game?
“What was running through my mind?” Reinhart said. “A whole lot of nothing; a little bit of a blackout. Just feeling the energy; you’re kind of in the zone. That was probably the fastest game I’ve been a part of, so it was a pretty cool experience.”
Despite his four goal performance, the best moment of the Panthers’ Game 6 Stanley Cup win for Reinhart came after the final buzzer sounded, when the team let its new players lift the Cup first.
“Chucky [Matthew Tkachuk] came to me and Barky [Aleksander Barkov] and said it would probably be a good idea [to let the new players lift the Cup first],” Reinhart said. “That’s probably the best moment, thinking back. Lifting the Stanley Cup for the first time is something you can’t repeat; the first time touching it. That’s the team we have right here and it goes a long way. It’s almost more satisfying watching the new guys lift the Cup this year than it was hoisting it yourself.”
Can the Panthers become the just the sixth NHL team to three-peat?
“A three-peat–that would be pretty cool,” Reinhart said when asked. “I think I said the same thing last year and I said it on the ice when people ask about the three-peat: last year when we won, we didn’t think about the second one–we enjoyed that one for a bit. And that’s what we are going to do right now. We are certainly enjoying this one! If we learned anything, it is that when the time comes, we will be prepared, ready and motivated to do it again. In this moment, it’s all about the second one.”
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