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Panthers Pelt Brad Marchand With Rats After Wins, Coach Paul Maurice Loves It

Maurice gets a kick out of the Panthers' amusing new ritual.

Tim Capurso

The Panthers' post-win tradition is now to shoot plastic rats as hard as they can at Brad Marchand.
The Panthers' post-win tradition is now to shoot plastic rats as hard as they can at Brad Marchand. / Screengrab Twitter @BR_OpenIce
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Since 1996, Florida Panthers fans have taken to throwing plastic rats on the ice after the club's victories.

The 2025 Panthers have added a variation to the tradition: pelting left wing Brad Marchand with said plastic rats. There's no telling why or how this bizarre tradition began—other than the boys being the boys—but it's caught on, even during road games. The Panthers defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 5-0 in Game 2 of the conference finals on Thursday night at Lenovo Center, and the rats sailed onto the ice shortly after the end of regulation.

Marchand stood stationary on the ice to congratulate his teammates as they filed off towards the locker room. In doing so, he also set himself up as a sitting duck for plastic rat attacks.

If Marchand thought he'd have a savior in Panthers coach Paul Maurice, he was wrong. Maurice got a kick out of it.

"I heard about it. I’d never seen it,” Maurice told The Athletic. “I will tell you, they’re shooting them as hard as they can. They’re not flipping them at him. There’s shrapnel around there, and I didn’t have any equipment on. I was just trying to get off the ice. Like, it hurt. But they’re eating them up at them, and he’s trying to get out of the way. It is funny as hell."

Marchand, a Stanley Cup champion with the Boston Bruins back in 2011, was acquired by Florida in exchange for a conditional pick back in March. The 37-year-old has not only been productive—he ranks second on the team in points and is a plus-11 in the playoffs—he has also brought a veteran presence to the locker room and an enforcer-like mentality on the ice to an already-physical Panthers team.

Marchand has been great for the vibes off the ice too.

On the Panthers' off-day, Marchand apparently organized a trip to a Dairy Queen in Raleigh, N.C.

"It's important," Marchand's Panthers teammate Niko Mikkola told Jamison Olive of the team's website. "You have a day off and you don't think about hockey too much. You just live your normal life."

The Panthers are seeking to win the franchise's second straight Stanley Cup Trophy. Currently leading the conference finals 2-0 with the series set to return to Florida for Game 3 on Saturday, the Panthers will look to get one step closer to the Cup.

Oh, and keep shooting rats at Marchand.

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Tim Capurso
TIM CAPURSO

Tim Capurso is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Prior to joining SI in November 2023, he wrote for RotoBaller and ClutchPoints, where he was the lead editor for MLB, college football and NFL coverage. A lifelong Yankees and Giants fan, Capurso grew up just outside New York City and now lives near Philadelphia. When he's not writing, he enjoys reading, exercising and spending time with his family, including his three-legged cat Willow, who, unfortunately, is an Eagles fan.

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