Sunrise, Fla. >> Stanley’s stay in South Florida is getting extended.
The Florida Panthers repeated as Stanley Cup champions by beating the Edmonton Oilers 5-1 in Game 6 of the final on Tuesday night, becoming the NHL’s first back-to-back winners since Tampa Bay in 2020 and ’21 and the third team to do it this century.

Sam Reinhart scored four goals, becoming just the sixth player in league history and first since Maurice Richard in 1957 to get that many in a game in the final. His third to complete the hat trick sent rats, along with hats, flying onto the ice. Matthew Tkachuk, one of the faces of the franchise, fittingly scored the Cup clincher.

More rats were part of the victory celebration when the clock hit zeroes. Panthers players mobbed in the corner, while the Oilers watched in dismay.

“Good evening, South Florida,” Commissioner Gary Bettman said before presenting the trophy to captain Aleksander Barkov. “It feels like we just did this.”

Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 28 of the 29 shots he faced, closing the door on a rematch with the same end result. The only goal came from fellow Russian Vasily Podkolzin in garbage time, long after the outcome was decided.

That was followed by chants of “We want the Cup!” as time ticked down. The Panthers already had it. Now they get to keep it.

“This is as good as the first one,” Reinhart said. “We learned some lessons. We stayed on the gas, foot on the pedal, and obviously the result speaks for itself.”

Not long after the Lightning made three trips to the final in a row, Florida has done the same and now has the makings of a modern-day dynasty. The Panthers have won 11 of 12 playoff series since Tkachuk arrived by trade and Paul Maurice took over as coach in the summer of 2022.

“We’ve got to be a dynasty now,” Tkachuk said. “Three years in a row finals, two championships. This is a special group.”

The only time they have been on the wrong side of a handshake line was the final in Vegas in 2023, only after several key players were banged up and gutting through significant injuries.

From the core of Tkachuk, Reinhart, Barkov and Sam Bennett on down the roster, they were much healthier this time around and were boosted by key trade deadline additions Brad Marchand and Seth Jones. Bennett led all goal-scorers this postseason with 15, and Marchand had six in the final alone.

Bennett won the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. Barkov handed the Cup to first-time champion Nate Schmidt, and all the others winning it for the first time got it soon after.

“It’s amazing to be able to be here,” Schmidt said. “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

Getting depth contributions from throughout the lineup allowed them to overpower Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and the Oilers, who struggled with Florida’s ferocious forecheck and switched goaltenders multiple times in the final. Stuart Skinner got the nod in Game 6 and was again done in by mistakes in front of him that ended with the puck in the net behind him and had his own blunder on Reinhart’s second goal.

McDavid tried to take over but was again stymied by Barkov, Jones and Bobrovsky. He finished with seven points in his second career trip to the final, again denied his first title.

“We lost to a really good team,” McDavid said. “Nobody quit, nobody threw the towel in, but they’re a heck of a team. They’re back-to-back Stanley Cup champions for a reason.”

Canada’s Stanley Cup drought reached 31 seasons and 32 years dating to Montreal in 1993. Teams in the U.S. Sun Belt have won it five of the past six times, four of them in Florida.

This run through Tampa Bay in five, Toronto in seven, Carolina in five and Edmonton in six showed how clinical the Panthers have become under Maurice, who has coached more NHL games than everyone except Scotty Bowman and is now a two-time champion.

So is Marchand, who last hoisted the Cup in 2011 with the Boston Bruins. The 14-year gap is the third-longest in league history, just shy of 16 for Chris Chelios from 1986 to 2002 and 15 for Mark Recchi from ’91 to ’06.

“It’s incredible,” Marchand said. “It’s a feeling you can’t really describe. Seeing the family and everyone up there and everyone that supported me and helped me get to this point, words can’t put this into reality how great it feels. Such an incredible group.”

Which DragonBall Z toys are best?

“DragonBall Z” is one of the most popular anime television shows today. This high-octane show features Goku and his friends as they journey through space to face godlike opponents and collect the legendary DragonBalls. The fantastically choreographed fight scenes are thrilling and the engaging storyline will keep viewers of all ages hooked. “DragonBall Z” influenced pop culture and continues to be a favorite for many viewers across the globe.

Which DragonBall Z toys are the most popular?

The obvious gifts for a “DragonBall Z” fan are all of the DVDs and video games of the show. But if they already have those, there are plenty of other options. There’s a huge market for “DragonBall Z” toys for both collectors and casual play. And whether you’re shopping for a fan or you’re looking for yourself, you can’t go wrong with a Funko Pop Goku & Nimbus figurine.

What to consider before buying a DragonBall Z toy

DragonBall Z background

“DragonBall Z” has been on the air since the 80s, and there are various spinoff series as well, so there’s a lot of material to draw from. There’s “DragonBall,” “DragonBall Z,” ”DragonBall GT” and “DragonBall Super,” plus a dozen or so movies. If you want to stick with “DragonBall Z,” which is the classic show that most people will know, there are some classic storylines you can look for. Check for toys from the Saiyan arc, the Namek arc, the Cell Games arc, and the Majin Buu arc.

DragonBall Z characters

Goku is one of the main protagonists in “DragonBall Z” and he comes in several different versions. One of the most popular versions is the Ultra Instinct, where Goku has silver hair and bright silver eyes to match. You can also find a more classic version with Goku as a Super Saiyan. If you want a villain to match Goku, consider purchasing toys of the characters Cell, Frieza or Vegeta.

Age of the recipient

Before you make your purchase, consider the age you’re buying for. Not all toys are for playing and may have small parts that are dangerous for young children. That said, there is a wide range of action figures and toys for all kinds of “DragonBall Z” fans to enjoy. Whether it’s an action figure, a stuffed animal, or a board game, there’s something for everyone.

What are the best DragonBall Z toys to buy?

Funko Pop Goku & Nimbus figure

What you need to know: This Funko Pop Goku sports the uniform from the original series. It shows him riding Nimbus and carrying his iconic staff.

What you’ll love: This is perfect for any “DragonBall Z” fan or anyone with a Funko Pop collection.

What you should consider: It has a big head, so it’s top-heavy and may knock over more easily.

S.H. Figuarts Frieza action figure

What you need to know: Frieza is a classic villain and was the first to fight against Super Saiyan Goku. His character remains a fan favorite to this day.

What you’ll love: This figure comes with changeable arms, legs, energy blasts, and even expressions. It’s versatile and looks great in a display case.

What you should consider: It’s definitely on the more expensive side and is more of a collectors’ item than a children’s toy.

Super Saiyan Goku figurine

What you need to know: This classic Super Saiyan Goku is from “DragonBall Super” and comes with a secondary set of attachable hands and a Shenlong dragon head.

What you’ll love: This Goku is agile and has easy-articulating limbs that make posing simple. The hand and energy blast options make customization even more fun.

What you should consider: Some felt it wasn’t a good choice for younger fans, since there are so many parts that can fall off and get lost during play.

Final Form Cell

What you need to know: In “DragonBall Z,” Cell holds a tournament to decide the fate of the world, and only the Z fighters can stop him. This Cell action figure comes with a different set of hands and stands half a foot tall.

What you’ll love: The proportions and design are accurate to the source material and look very high-end considering its price point.

What you should consider: His shoulder sockets can pop out, and his detachable wings tend to come off when posing his arms.

DragonBall Z Monopoly

What you need to know: There’s nothing more fun than a game night. With the Monopoly DragonBall Z game, the “DragonBall Z” fighters fight to become the richest warrior.

What you’ll love: Plenty of characters from the show make an appearance in this game, and die-hard fans will appreciate the details.

What you should consider: Even though it’s the same Monopoly game, the new theme makes this a great buy for families. That said, the game may be too complicated for young fans.

Super Saiyan 2 Gohan

What you need to know: Super Saiyan 2 Gohan is an iconic character, and this figurine shows him at his peak during his fight with Cell.

What you’ll love: The intricate details in this figurine’s face and body look almost exactly like the show. It has 16 points of articulation for a wide variety of fighting poses.

What you should consider: The low price shows in the joints, which has limited movement in the hips and shoulders.

Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change.

Check out our Daily Deals for the best products at the best prices and sign up here to receive the BestReviews weekly newsletter full of shopping inspo and sales.

BestReviews spends thousands of hours researching, analyzing and testing products to recommend the best picks for most consumers. BestReviews and its newspaper partners may earn a commission if you purchase a product through one of our links.

After opening his concert Tuesday night at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer James Taylor told the crowd of about 12,000: “Minneapolis. It’s great to be back.”

But a few songs later, the 77-year-old corrected himself and then told a great story about Minnesota guitar maker Jim Olson. Back in 1989, Olson heard Taylor was going to be in town to play a benefit show and managed to get one of his guitars into Taylor’s hands. “I haven’t put it down since,” Taylor told the crowd, looking down at his six string. (Olson, he added, was in the audience Tuesday.)

That’s the kind of night it was at the X. With the mild manner of a retired Presbyterian minister, Taylor played a two-hour set of some of the gentlest popular music of his generation. His voice has retained much of its warmth, in part because he’s never been about power, but rather intimacy.

As such, Taylor gave the show the feel of an intimate club gig on a breezy summer evening. The crowd certainly helped matters by sitting in quiet rapture, applauding and cheering only at appropriate times. Yeah, the occasional fan would yell “We love you James” or “You’re kicking ass, JT” between songs, but even Taylor didn’t seem to mind.

For the first part of the show, Taylor played a series of songs about traveling, including “Wandering,” “Walking Man,” “Stretch of the Highway,” “Mexico” and “My Traveling Star.” Between numbers, he chatted with the crowd, offering plenty of dad jokes along the way. He also poked fun at his age, showing the crowd the comically oversized set list he was reading from and offering to take out his teeth after he took off his jacket.

Taylor also took time throughout the show to introduce the members of his All-Star Band, a group of seasoned musicians that aren’t household names, but have played with plenty of them over the decades. Among them was bassist and Minneapolis native Jimmy Johnson and Taylor’s son Henry, who has been singing backup in the band since 2021.

Kate Markowitz, Dorian Holley and Andrea Zonn joined Henry and provided some gorgeous harmonies for the main attraction. The rest of the band, too, gave Taylor plenty to work with and even occasionally rocked out — well, as much as Taylor rocks out — on songs like “(I’ve Got to) Stop Thinkin’ ‘Bout That” and “Up on the Roof” (a song Taylor’s pal Carole King co-wrote for the Drifters). After the latter, Taylor told the crowd “No Kings, except Carole” and earned some of the biggest cheers of the evening in the process.

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Hours after the shootings of two Minnesota lawmakers over the weekend, authorities asked David Carlson to identify his lifelong friend in a harrowing photograph.

Carlson says he had known and trusted Vance Boelter from the time the two played together as children. But he barely recognized the 57-year-old in the surveillance image police showed him of Boelter wearing a flesh-colored mask as he carried out what authorities described as a political rampage against Democrats and abortion providers.

“The guy with the mask, I don’t know that guy,” Carlson said in a telephone interview with the Associated Press, recounting his decades-long friendship with a man he likened to a brother. Boelter’s involvement in such an attack, he said, was as surprising to him as “getting struck by lightning.”

“There was a darkness that was inside of him,” Carlson said. “He must have kept it hidden.”

As authorities piece together Boelter’s movements and motivations, Carlson and others are conducting their own inventory of their interactions with the one-time pastor, wondering whether they missed any red flags.

This booking photo provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office shows Vance Boelter in Green Isle, Minn., on June 16, 2025. (Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Boelter is a married father of five but often stayed at Carlson’s home in North Minneapolis to shorten his commute from Green Isle, Minn., to work. In hindsight, Carlson said, Boelter “was a sick man” and needed help, even if those around him didn’t realize it in time.

Law enforcement has cautioned the motive could be more complex than observers might prefer, even as Boelter’s own disjointed writings suggest he was hell-bent on targeting Democrats.

Boelter has been charged with federal murder and stalking, along with state counts, in the fatal shootings of former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their suburban Minneapolis home. He is also accused of wounding Democratic Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in their home nearby.

At the time of the shootings, Carlson said Boelter had been struggling to find work and was “disappointed” he wasn’t hearing back from people.

In February, Boelter abruptly quit his job delivering bodies from assisted living facilities to a Twin Cities mortuary and returned for several weeks to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where he had founded several companies focused on farming and fishing.

“I thought it was a mistake for him to quit his job,” Carlson said. “I didn’t think he was going to get anywhere with the Congo.”

But the life change was in keeping with Boelter’s impetuous “mentality to always go to the extreme,” Carlson said, recalling a time in the 1990s when Boelter was captured by security forces after sneaking into the Gaza Strip to preach Christianity on a trip to Israel. “That’s how crazy Vance is,” Carlson said. “He wasn’t supposed to be there.”

Years earlier, after becoming a born-again Christian, Boelter “burned all of his belongings,” Carlson said, including karate and martial arts weapons and anything else that distracted from his religion.

Vance Boelter, the man suspected of shooting two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, is taken into custody Sunday, June 15, 2025, in Sibley County in this image posted to Facebook by Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher. The officers’ faces were blurred in the photo prior to posting. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County sheriff’s office)

Boelter graduated in 1990 from an interdenominational Bible college in Dallas, earning a diploma in practical theology in leadership. The Christ for the Nations Institute said in a statement it was “aghast and horrified” to learn the suspect was among its alumni, saying “this is not who we are.”

The church Boelter attended in Jordan, Minn., has not responded to emails from AP but issued a similar statement condemning the shootings as “the opposite of what Jesus taught his followers to do.”

Boelter, who long worked in the food industry before beginning to style himself as a private security contractor, offered a glimpse of his opposition to abortion in a 2023 sermon he gave in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, saying “they don’t know abortion is wrong in many churches.”

“He wasn’t a radical cultist,” Carlson said. “He was just a regular Christian and kind of outspoken.”

Boelter was unrestrained when it came to his distaste for Democrats, Carlson said, but that rhetoric never seemed threatening. Carlson and another friend, Paul Schroeder, told AP they never heard Boelter talk about abortion or any of the officials who were targeted.

The FBI said Boelter “made lists containing the names and home addresses of many Minnesota public officials, mostly or all Democrats.”

“It wasn’t like, ‘We gotta stop them, man,’” Carlson said. “But it chills me to think he was in his room writing that stuff in my house.”

Boelter would go to a shooting range occasionally but was not fanatical about firearms, Schroeder said.

“I thought he was just collecting them for self-defense,” Carlson said. “It was 1,000 miles away from stalking people and killing them.”

Carlson said he awoke Saturday to an alarming text message from Boelter, who warned he was “going to be gone for a while,” and “may be dead shortly.” Carlson initially thought his friend was suicidal and went to check his room.

He said he was so concerned he called police, who “at first didn’t seem too interested” before quickly connecting the messages to the shootings that led to a two-day manhunt concluding with Boelter’s arrest in a field near his Green Isle home.

“Why throw your whole life away? God, he’s so stupid,” Carlson said. “He had everything.”

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