The fortunes of the NHL’s two sunshine state teams could not be starker in their contrast.

Since their introduction into the NHL, the Florida Panthers have only qualified for the postseason on five occasions. They may have made it to the Stanley Cup Final in 1996 but have failed to make it out of the first round in every other post-season campaign.

The Tampa Bay Lightning have enjoyed far more success.
Two Stanley Cup wins, one finals loss and three conference final appearances.

Since the 2004-05 lockout, Florida has failed to qualify for the playoffs twelve times compared to Tampa’s six.
That disparity has only been highlighted in the last seven seasons with Tampa winning a Stanley Cup, being losing finalists, making it to a conference final and winning a President’s Trophy.

Tampa’s success cannot be boiled down to one key aspect of how the organisation operates but AHL affiliates have played an important role in their rise to becoming one of the top NHL team and why they are the reigning Stanley Cup Champions.

Tampa’s early partnerships with AHL clubs were fractured and problematic.
Between 2001-2007, Tampa twice affiliated with Springfield and in-between times had to farm their players to both Hershey and Hamilton having agreed on partial agreements with both.

An affiliation with Norfolk in 2007 provided some much-needed stability for Tampa to develop their prospects. During the five seasons of the affiliation, the Lightning reached the Conference Finals in 2011, while the Admirals went on to win the Calder Cup the following year, a team which included then rookies Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson and Alex Killorn.

Just five days after the 2012 Calder success, the Tampa organisation announced it was to switch affiliations and made a deal with independently owned Syracuse Crunch.
It seemed an odd decision at the time but within two weeks the Anaheim Ducks and Norfolk owner Kenny Young had agreed on a five-year affiliation which may have pointed as to why the Lightning was looking elsewhere.

The Syracuse Crunch and Tampa Bay Lightning have gone on to form a partnership as good as any between NHL and AHL affiliates.

The Crunch have twice been Calder Cup finalists, only missed out on the playoffs on two occasions after losing players through promotion to the NHL and have recorded winning seasons since 2012-13 to present day.

Promoted players include Cedric Paquette, Brayden Point, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Luke Witkowski, Anthony Cirelli, Mathieu Joseph and to a far lesser extent, Nikita Kucherov.
Ondrej Palat and Alex Killorn also finished their development with Syracuse after initially beginning their AHL careers in Norfolk.

It shouldn’t be discounted or overlooked that a certain Jon Cooper coached that Norfolk team, proving that all staff, and not just players can be developed in the American League.

It’s a far different story from the Florida Panthers who have failed to establish consistently strong affiliation for prospects to develop since their inception to the NHL in 1992.
From 1993-2001 Florida worked their way through five teams – Cincinnati Cyclones (IHL), Carolina Monarchs, New Haven Beast, Kentucky Thoroughblades and Louisville Panthers.

You could excuse that to some degree with the ever-changing nature of minor hockey during those years but it’s evident that Florida had no plan moving forward and were a step behind the rest of the NHL clubs and the American Hockey League, which was heading into a new era.

It seems almost unthinkable in today’s climate that Florida entered into a deal with San Antonio through 2002-05 and would go onto renew that partnership through 2011-15. In-between times was a one-year partial agreement with the Rochester Americans that turned into five more seasons after Rochester had issues with the city council and the Buffalo Sabres.

Without the foresight or ambition to make the affiliation a permanent arrangement allowed the Buffalo Sabres and Terry Pegula to come in and buy the Amerks.

After finally finishing with the San Antonio Rampage in 2015, a deal from a geographic sense if nothing else made absolutely no sense, Florida turned to the Portland Pirates in a short-term arrangement that lasted one season.

With few options on the table, the Panthers found themselves tying the knot on a deal with the newly formed Springfield Thunderbirds in 2016.

Since their introduction to the AHL, the Thunderbirds have struggled at the foot of the Atlantic Division and have never qualified for the playoffs.

Therefore it was no surprise they chose to go a different route, opting to agree to a long-term affiliation with the St. Louis Blues in March of this year from 2021.

Due to recent circumstances, the Florida Panthers and Charlotte Checkers found themselves at the prom without a date.
Now both parties need to make their new agreement work for differing reasons.

Florida has selected ten players inside the top 89 through the last three drafts and in 2020 hold picks 12, 43, 73, 85 and 104.

New General Manager Bill Zito is well aware that draft and development is key to an organisations success and you only need look at the success of their closest rival for conclusive proof.