When New York Rangers and Edmonton Oilers legend Mark Messier was preparing to cover the Stanley Cup Final for ABC/ESPN, he was hoping both of his former teams would make it to the final dance.

Only one thing stood in the way: The Florida Panthers.

And they dismantled the Presidents’ Trophy winning Rangers in a six-game series to advance to the Stanley Cup Final to take on Edmonton.

“I picked the Rangers and Oilers to meet in the finals, and part of it was the emotional pick, but obviously because both Edmonton and New York legitimately had a chance to get there,” Messier said.  “Unfortunately, the Rangers got up against a team that was just unrelenting in the pressure they put on the Rangers and they never let the Rangers get to their game.

“They got them down early, held them down and never let them off the mat. So, it doesn’t surprise me that the Panthers are here.”

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Messier, speaking Thursday during a NHL media conference call, knows a thing or two about what it takes to get that far. As a six-time Stanley Cup Champion, he’s been there plenty of times and sees exactly how the Panthers were able to make it to the Stanley Cup Final for the second year in a row.

“What’s really funny about the Stanley Cup Playoffs is that the Stanley Cup-winning team seems to, as everybody else seems to shrink away and get tired, it always seems like they get stronger,” Messier said. “We see it every year and they're able to withstand and stay away from serious injuries or they seem to have the belief that energizes them this time of year.

“Instead of getting beaten down in the war of attrition physically, it seems to embolden them. Instead of being beaten down by the war of attrition mentally, they seem to be sharper and having more fun. And nobody exactly exemplifies that more than Matthew Tkachuk.”

Arrival of Tkachuk, Maurice fueled Panthers' rise to playoff prominence

Tkachuk’s arrival ahead of the 2022-23 season — along with the hiring of head coach Paul Maurice — is what many people attribute to the Panthers’ rise to playoff prominence over the past two seasons. The run-and-gun Presidents’ Trophy winners quickly changed to a more physically-imposing and defensively-savvy system, which wins games in the playoffs.

The change of pace from the speedy, skilled playmaker in Jonathan Huberdeau to the gritty, physical, yet incredibly skilled power forward in Tkachuk marked that change of pace. Everyone followed his lead as the team bought into Maurice’s system. And the positivity shines through as the team has been having fun throughout that grind.

“The accommodating personality to the media and the way he embraces what’s going on has to be infectious within the team in the locker room that why wouldn’t we be having a great time while we’re doing this?” Messier said. “And from my experience, it was always that feeling of ‘We’re having a great time right now. Where else would we rather be than right here, right now?’

“And I think that becomes incredibly infectious and there’s something deeper spiritually that happens when a team starts to come closer together and that trust is required in order to win a Stanley Cup. You are tested in every way and that trust and belief becomes incredibly powerful that I know the guy sitting beside me is doing everything in his power to be the best you can be on every given night.”

That’s one of many things that helped the Panthers become one of the most complete teams in the league in many people’s eyes. The physicality, the buy-in, the elite offensive talents like Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe, elite two-way talents like Aleksander Barkov, Gustav Forsling and Sam Reinhart. But one thing stands in their way.

Connor McDavid, who to many is the greatest player to lace up the skates since Wayne Gretzky, has been in a zone to secure his first Stanley Cup. But does he have what it takes to pull it off?

While Messier does not like comparing players from different eras, he does know what it takes to get to Gretzky’s level. He won four Stanley Cups alongside him, after all, in Edmonton. And even with all of the records, the individual awards that both of them have, what separated them on an all-time scale is those four Cups. McDavid is still looking for his first.

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Wayne Gretzky knew greatness came with championships

“Wayne, the records in his era speak for himself. He is statistically the greatest athlete to have ever played. The separation between him and everybody else was not even comparable,” Messier said. “McDavid is probably the best-engineered player of all-time, and having said that, he’s still got players like [Nikita] Kucherov and [Nathan] MacKinnon and other players that are right there in that stratosphere with him.

“He hasn’t separated himself the way some other players have, and that doesn’t mean he’s not great. He may be the most physically gifted player ever, but we’re talking about how a player would be defined when he’s done. Gretzky will tell you that his sole purpose was to smash every record and he was on a mission to do that. But more importantly than that, he realized that without championships he would never be regarded as one of the greatest players ever. He said it himself.”

Kucherov (Lightning) and MacKinnon (Avalanche) won their Stanley Cups in the past few years. Now McDavid has the chance to do the same, but only if he can get past the Panthers.

STANLEY CUP FINAL

Oilers at Panthers, Game 1 (best of seven)

Saturday, 8 p.m., ABC

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Mark Messier not surprised Florida Panthers have made Stanley Cup Final