Birch ’13 Helps Florida Claim Second Consecutive Stanley Cup Title
SUNRISE, Fla. — Being part of a Stanley Cup-winning team at least once in your career is a lifelong dream, but winning it back-to-back is an achievement only a select few get to experience.
Braden Birch ’13, former captain and defenseman of the Cornell men’s hockey team, joined that distinguished group Tuesday night when the Florida Panthers became the ninth NHL franchise to repeat as Stanley Cup champions following their 5-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 6 of the 2025 Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena. The Panthers are the first NHL team to win consecutive Stanley Cups since the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2020 and 2021.
Concluding his ninth season within the Panthers’ front office, including his fourth season serving as the Panthers’ director of hockey operations and salary cap management, Birch joined the Panthers before the 2016-17 season as a special assistant to then-Panthers general manager, Tom Rowe. Birch’s contributions were quickly recognized, resulting in his promotion to director of hockey operations the following year — a title he has held since.
Before the 2021-22 season, Birch had the position of director of salary cap management added to his title, collaborating with the Panthers’ current general manager, Bill Zito, to ensure Florida remains compliant with the NHL’s salary cap. Like Birch, Zito is also connected within ECAC Hockey, having been a three-year member of Yale’s men’s hockey team from 1984 to 1987.
Birch and Zito were two of six people with ties to ECAC Hockey who hoisted the Stanley Cup on Tuesday night. The others included former Clarkson forward Nico Sturm, whom Casey Jones ’90, the current Jay R. Bloom ’77 Head Coach of Cornell Men’s Ice Hockey, mentored between 2016 and 2019 while serving as the head coach of Clarkson. Other front office staff members included Princeton graduate Paul Krepelka, who is Florida’s Senior VP of Hockey Operations, Boston University’s Paul Fenton, who played for the Terriers between 1979 and 1982 and is the Panthers’ Senior Advisor to the General Manager, and Sean Backman, a 2010 Yale graduate, who is one of the Panthers’ professional scouts.
This year’s Stanley Cup victory for the Panthers marks the fourth consecutive year in which a Cornell hockey alum has played or been a member of the front office of a Stanley Cup-winning organization. Former defenseman Jacob MacDonald ’15, who was teammates with Birch for two seasons (2011-13), lifted the Stanley Cup as part of the Colorado Avalanche in 2022, despite not suiting up for any of its playoff games. Darren Eliot ’83, the senior vice president of hockey programming and facility operations with the Vegas Golden Knights, was a member of the Golden Knights’ front office that defeated the Panthers in five games during the 2023 Stanley Cup Final.
Throughout his four years at Cornell, Birch participated in 128 games for the Big Red, accumulating 21 points (five goals, 16 assists) and achieving a career plus-17 rating. In his senior year, he served as a tri-captain, sharing honors with Erik Axell and Nick D’Agostino.
After his time on East Hill, Birch played one professional season, dividing his time between HIFK in the Finnish Liiga and two ECHL teams. While with HIFK, Birch acted as an alternate captain and recorded one assist in 17 games before returning to the States, where he totaled six points (one goal, five assists) over 31 games combined with the Florida Everblades — owned by Cornell hockey alumnus Craig Brush ’72 since its inception in 1998 — and the Colorado Eagles.
