SUNRISE, Fla. — Maybe the end for the Florida Panthers came when Brad Marchand was shut down for the season last month. Or maybe it was when Seth Jones broke his collarbone and wound up missing 26 games. Or, maybe it was 20 minutes into training camp, when captain Aleksander Barkov blew out his knee.

Nobody knows when the season was officially doomed.

Doesn’t matter now. The Panthers are out.

Games remain, but the Panthers were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention on Saturday with a 9-4 loss to Pittsburgh. For the first time since 2022, a team other than Florida will represent the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Final and for the first time since 2023, a team other than the Panthers will be the one hoisting the greatest chalice in sports.

They’ve known this was coming for a while. It’s just official now.

“Obviously, no one’s happy about the situation,” Panthers forward Sam Bennett said. “But it’s about really just sticking together as a team and going through this as a team. We’re all sticking together. It’s not fun sometimes. But we’re just trying to make the best of it.”

By the time the regular season ends in a couple of weeks, the Panthers will have gone well past the 500 man-games-missed mark this season because of injury. Barkov, the captain who Panthers coach Paul Maurice believes is the best player in the world, missed the entire year and a chance to captain Finland at the Milan Cortina Olympics as well.

Jonah Gadjovich will wind up missing 72 games with an upper-body injury. Tomas Nosek missed 60 games with a knee injury. Dmitry Kulikov is up to 58 games missed, most with a shoulder injury and now a badly broken nose. Matthew Tkachuk missed 47 games while recovering from surgery to repair a sports hernia and torn adductor.

Cole Schwindt missed more than half of the season with a pair of injuries. Marchand will miss 29 games and Jones missed 26. Niko Mikkola, Evan Rodrigues, Sam Reinhart, Uvis Balinskis and Anton Lundell were all shut down for the season at least a couple of weeks ago. Aaron Ekblad broke a finger this week and he won’t play until next season.

And it was no laughing matter at the time, but Eetu Luostarinen missed nine games — after getting burned while barbecuing.

“I’d say we had some adversity,” Maurice said.

Add it all up, and Florida is likely going to finish the season with no more than eight players who dressed in last year’s Cup-clinching win against Edmonton on the ice. The Panthers bent, bent, bent all season and finally broke.

“They’ve been true to it,” Maurice said, speaking of the team’s culture. “And we’ve had some tough nights, but the bench has been right and they’re cheering for each other. They’re engaged in the game. They’re talking about the game. It’s just, you’re just not going to be able to produce, not going to be able to execute a whole bunch of things that you normally expect to.”

Put simply, the Panthers might just need a break.

They were in 67 playoff games over the last three seasons, the most in the NHL — and unbelievably, more than 17 other franchises played in that span combined. They’ve logged tons of miles, taken tons of hits and done it all with very short offseasons because their Cup runs kept stretching into June while non-playoff teams are done in April.

“I think we all know … how good this hockey team is,” Bennett said. “We know how good we’re going to be when we have everyone healthy and everyone back. So, there’s obviously a ton of excitement, I think, in anticipation for next year.”

With good reason. Hockey operations president and general manager Bill Zito has had the vast majority of the core under contract for some time: Barkov, Tkachuk, Reinhart, Bennett, Marchand, Carter Verhaeghe, Jones, Ekblad, Gustav Forsling, Lundell, Rodrigues, Mikkola, Kulikov, Balinskis, Reinhardt and Jesper Boqvist are among those who are signed. The biggest question is at goalie, where Sergei Bobrovsky will be a free agent, but one who is believed to want to remain with the Panthers.

All that talk can wait, at least for a couple of more weeks.

“We’re just focused on this year,” Jones said after the loss Saturday.

Things, if the Panthers are lucky, should look very different next season. Or put another way, things could look like how they were in June 2024 and June 2025, when Florida won the Cup. The celebrations started like this: NHL commissioner Gary Bettman would say a few words, then hand the Cup to Barkov, who would skate away and hoist.

The Panthers felt like that could have happened again this season. For about 20 minutes, anyway. It was at the 20-minute mark of the first full-team training camp practice where Barkov blew out the ACL and MCL in his knee.

“You know right away. Oh, you knew it was bad,” Maurice said. “He’s a tough one. He doesn’t go down lightly. It was as close to being at a funeral as there can be. The 19th minute, we are humpin’, up and down the ice. And I’m taking it all in thinking, ‘Oh, we’re right there. These guys are focused, they’re fit, they’re pushing themselves. I’m not even yelling at them anymore.’ And then that happens.

“The next three days were a prolonged funeral service. We didn’t know it was going to be for our season.”

If the Panthers were in the playoff chase, Barkov might be playing now. If there was a Game 1 of Round 1 sometime in the next couple weeks, the expectation is Barkov would have been ready. And now, the Panthers will pivot to Game 1 of next season.

They won’t be the defending Cup champions anymore. It might actually rekindle the desire to win it again.

“Bill Zito’s vision for this team has just been so bang on,” Maurice said. “We have full faith in the vision that he has for the group, and the core is going to be here next year. We’ll all be excited about that.”

Collier County deputies ended a daylong standoff with a Naples man accused of making terrorist threats.

Deputies arrested Peter Hooker, 60, at his home, Lago Apartments complex at the intersection of Livingston and Radio Roads on Friday, April 3, the sheriff’s office social media reported.

More: Bonita Springs woman arrested after armed pizza shop standoff

Hooker is charged with written threats to kill, do bodily injury or conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, a felony.

Deputies received reports that Hooker had made written threats of violence. When deputies arrived about 9:25 a.m., Hooker refused to come to the door.

Concerned that Hooker may be armed, multiple units, along with fire and EMS, responded.

Throughout the day Hooker continued to ignore deputies’ commands to come to the door, the reports indicate.

Deputies evacuated areas of the complex and closed sections of Livingston and Radio roads.

“This was a complex and evolving situation, and our deputies addressed it with professionalism from start to finish,” Sheriff Kevin Rambosk said. “I also want to thank the public for their cooperation and patience as first responders worked to bring this to a peaceful conclusion.”

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Central Florida students are getting ready for prom season, and many families will spend hundreds of dollars per student on tickets, transportation, and attire.However, one organization is helping students with free prom attire and accessories.The average prom dress can cost $150 to $300, and tuxedo rentals can be as much as $200 or more, especially for designer options.26Health, a nonprofit health care organization, aims to make prom fun and not frustrating by offering free attire and accessories.Joanne LaComb is a mother on a mission, searching for special prom attire for her son and daughter at “Operation Prom” on Magnolia Avenue in Orlando.”You know prom suits are so expensive. It’s $111 for a ticket for a prom. Imagine buying a couple hundred suits, you want to make sure your kids look snazzy. They don’t want to go without looking like a nice suit. It’s such a blessing. I’m so grateful for it,” George LaComb, a student at Lake Buena Vista High School, said.She found a prom dress for her daughter, Elizabeth and FaceTimed her son George to ensure his suit was just what he wanted.”Without this, I don’t think I would have had a prom suit, or at least a nice one for our prom. So I’m really grateful that my mom was able to get me a suit and I’m able to go wear something nice to our prom,” LaComb said.April 11 is LaComb’s prom at Lake Buena Vista High School, and it is also Derrion Bivins’ prom at Evans High School.”Actually, it’s crazy, I wasn’t going to go to prom because I couldn’t afford a suit, so like an hour or two, it came in my email, ‘Oh, mom, I can go, you just got to buy the ticket.’ I can go. It’s like, yeah, we was happy,” Bivins said. “That’s great because the tickets are expensive. Yeah, it’s $130 per person.”A social media request went out, and 26Health employees and partners donated 325 items for this effort.”We believe in giving back to the community, so this was a brainchild of our staff, and they wanted to be able to do something for individuals who may not have had the funds to participate in prom,” Latrice Stewart, 26 Health president and CEO, said.Thanks to the generosity of others, all the students will look fabulous at their proms. This is 26Health’s first year doing this, and the CEO said it has been an incredible experience because giving back is what they do.