A summer with the Stanley Cup has the Florida Panthers hungry to win it again

The moment still hasn’t fully hit Evan Rodrigues, even after a summer full of celebration draws to a close and a new season is about to begin.

Yes, he and the Florida Panthers really won the Stanley Cup.

Sometimes, saying it still doesn’t feel real.

“It might come one day,” Rodrigues said, “hopefully soon.”

There have been plenty of memories and moments and celebratory affairs over the past two-and-a-half months.

It began immediately after Florida’s 2-1 win in Game 7 over the Edmonton Oilers on June 24, first on the ice at Amerant Bank Arena when everyone took a lap with the Cup hoisted in the air and then in the locker room until the wee hours of the morning. It continued the next day, first at Fort Lauderdale Beach’s Elbo Room and then with stops at various locales throughout Broward and Miami-Dade. After that came the rain-soaked championship parade down A1A before the offseason began in earnest.

And then, starting on July 14 and continuing almost daily over the next two months, players, coaches and front office members each had their own day with the Cup. It made its way through five countries and two continents to give everyone their personal moment to reflect on the greatest achievement of their professional career.

“I don’t think I’ve really come down from it,” Rodrigues said. “I’m trying to take in and really relish all the memories, all the moments that we’re making.”

If the team has its way, more moments will be in store before they know it with the season right around the corner. The team holds its media day on Wednesday. The first practice of training camp follows on Thursday. Their preseason opener is Sunday with a doubleheader against the Nashville Predators.

And then, on Oct. 8, the Panthers begin their title defense at home against the Boston Bruins with a 7 p.m. puck drop at Amerant Bank Arena. They’ll raise a banner commemorating the first Stanley Cup in franchise history. They’ll relive the success of a season ago.

And then, the quest to win it all once again will begin.

“Once you go through your career and you don’t win one, you’re always chasing and always chasing it, but you don’t really know what that feeling is. You think it’s something you want. You play your whole life thinking, ‘Oh, I want to win the Stanley Cup,’ and then it gets there and it’s even better than you could have imagined,” Rodrigues said. “The goosebumps you get every time you either see it or something happens, especially for me, it’s not even close to what I expected. It’s above and beyond.

“That’s the drive now: Remember what it felt like, and go get it again.”

There’s a lot to remember from this summer.

The Stanley Cup’s journey began in the Florida Keys with vice president of sports performance Chris McLellan, the first Australian to have his name etched into the Cup, taking general manager Bill Zito and head strength and conditioning coach Mike Joyce for a fishing trip in the Florida Keys.

The global tour was underway. Among the headline moments:

▪ Aleksander Barkov, the first Finnish-born captain to win the Cup, had a full day of events in his hometown of Tampare, Finland, including a ceremony at Nokia Arena with about 15,000 in attendance, a trip to an amusement park and time with Finnish professional skateboarder Marius Syvanen, who became the first person to jump over the 35.25-inch-tall trophy on a skateboard.

▪ In St. Louis, Matthew Tkachuk brought the Cup to his elementary school, the local fire and police departments and the Anheuser Busch brewery, where one of the Clydesdale horses drank from the Cup.

▪ In Sweden, defenseman Gustav Forsling gave the Cup a helicopter tour of his hometwon Linkoping.

▪ Six Nations held a 2-mile parade for defenseman Brandon Montour, who is now with the Seattle Kraken.

There was a lot of golf, with Tkahcuk, Sam Reinhart, Carter Verhaeghe and Aaron Ekblad among others hitting the links with Lord Stanley by their side.

Tkachuk, Steven Lorentz (now with the Toronto Maple Leafs) and Vladimir Tarasenko (now with the Detroit Red Wings) were among those to bring the Cup to visit children at hospitals to brighten their days.

There was plenty of private time with close friends and family, too.

And there was a lot of food and drink consumed out of the Cup. Sam Bennett lived his childhood dream of scooping Cap’n Crunch out of the Cup’s bowl with his dad. Ice cream, soup, pasta, poutine, pastries and, yes, plenty of alcohol, also found its way into the Cup.

“For my first nine years in the League, you almost felt like it was impossible, right?” Ekblad said, according to NHL.com. “It’s so hard to do, and so few do it. … To understand that and feel the weight of what we’ve done and how amazing it is to be a champion and win this trophy is incredible.”

Working behind the scenes to make sure it all happen is Phil Pritchard, the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Keeper of the Cup since 1988. As soon as the Cup is won, it’s crunch time. He and the hall work with the winning team to organize the summer schedule and make the logistics work as smoothly as possible.

“Organized chaos,” Pritchard said when describing the summer tour. “You’re working with airlines. You’re working with rental car companies. You’re working with Mother Nature. You’re working with Father Time. You’re working with all of these things to make it happen.”

And as much as the celebrations are about the team and the individuals getting their time to bask in their glory, what stands out the most to Pritchard is how much each person puts in onus on including their communities in their days with the Stanley Cup.

“People don’t talk about it as much,” Pritchard said. “They all want to know the parties and all that kind of stuff, which is great, but the things they do to give back to those people that helped them along the way are so important. Hockey players really get that. And I’m not taking away from any other sport, but in hockey, you just can’t go outside and kick a ball or play catch or something. You need grandma or grandpa to help you tie your skates and put your shin pads on. You need help. All of those people, they don’t forget that.”

That’s why Anton Lundell made it a point of emphasis to go back to the Helsinki Ice Hall, where he began his professional career.

“Everything started here,” Lundell said, “in those stands, then on this ice. ... That’s when I really started dreaming about being in that position one day, celebrating on the ice with the team after winning something big.”

That’s why Bennett included a stop at the East Gwillimbury Sports Complex to give a large group of youth hockey players a chance to see the Cup in person.

“It’s really incredible to be back here at the rink where I learned to play where I fell in love with hockey. I learned to skate here, scored my first goal here,” he said. “It’s really cool to come back here at the peak of my career and bring the Stanley Cup to where it all started.”

His message to the kids in the crowd?

“If you ever have any doubt and don’t think it is possible — I’m here to tell you it is possible,” Bennett said. “If you love the game enough, if you work hard enough you are going to get an opportunity.”

That’s why defenseman Dmitry Kulikov, who took his day with the Cup in South Florida, spent a good portion of the day at the Baptist Health IcePlex in Fort Lauderdale.

“It’s unbelievable to see so many young hockey players, giving them the chance to see the Cup and hopefully inspire them to work hard and strive for your dreams,” said Kulikov, who signed a four-year contract extension with the Panthers this offseason. “This is truly special for me. I wanted to do that because I knew how much that would mean to me as a young player, not only to see a professional hockey player but to get a chance to see the Cup is a hundred times more special.”

And it has the Panthers itching for more.

Winning the Stanley Cup once in a career is a goal for all professional hockey players.

But as the Panthers can now attest, winning it just makes you want to win it again ... and again ... and again.

“We won the Cup, the greatest prize, but you want to feel the same feelings again. That leaves you hungry,” Barkov told NHL.com during his day with the Cup in Finland. “Winning the Cup helps us this coming season, but winning two in a row will no way be easy.”

“It wasn’t easy to win this one, and the next win will not be easy,” he added. “Everyone has to give it all, everyone has to play his best game, and of course you need a little bit of luck. That’s what it takes to win the Cup.”

The Panthers are set up to potentially make another run at the Cup this season.

Paul Maurice and his full coaching staff returns for Year 3.

Eight of the Panthers’ top nine forwards return, and their fourth line has been retooled with the additions of Jesper Boqvist, A.J. Greer and Tomas Nosek along with the return of Jonah Gadjovich.

Four of Florida’s top six defensemen — Ekblad, Forsling, Niko Mikkola and Kulikov — are back as well. Florida signed Adam Boqvist and Nate Schmidt and also have returnees Uvis Balinskis and Tobias Bjornfoot to compete for the remaining two spots in the lineup.

And goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky, pivotal in so many big moments the past two seasons, returns in net with Spencer Knight and Chris Driedger competing for the backup spot.

“We’re all ready to kind of turn the page and start to get after it again and have the same goal in mind,” Rodrigues said. “We know what it takes and now it’s just having that drive to go do it again, which I think every guy in the locker room has. We want the feeling again.”