This is going to be different from most things here. I’m going to do a media analysis instead of my usual commentary about the Florida Panthers. Why? Because there is a piece that requires me to do it. On October 9th, 2025, the British based paper The Guardian published an article that could easily be considered defamatory by members of the Florida Panthers front office. Bryan Armen Graham’s Blood, Bias and the Battle of Florida: how the NHL’s dirtiest rivalry exposed Hockey’s Old Boy Rot is a centerpiece for what is wrong with modern day journalism, especially sports journalism. The piece is riddled with misinformation, and this article will be an expose of Graham’s piece.

The article starts out innocuously enough with Graham providing the background for the fracas that took place between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers last week, culminating in the Saturday bloodbath which saw over 300 Penalty Minutes handed out in an exhibition game. However, Graham quickly uses loaded language to downplay the circumstances that led to the situation, citing the situation as stemming from “when Hagel’s borderline hit on Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov sparked Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad’s retaliatory headshot that left Hagel concussed” (Graham). There’s no problem with the second part of Graham’s statement. Ekblad sucker punched Hagel, which left him with a concussion. This was an action that Ekblad received supplementary discipline for, serving a 2 game playoff suspension. The problem here is the framing method that Graham uses to frame the situation. The Hagel hit on Barkov was anything but borderline, which the NHL punished with a one game suspension.

As the video shows, Hagel makes no attempt to play the puck, and instead alters his course of skating to lay a high hit on an unsuspecting player, with the puck nowhere near in sight. This play easily could’ve given Barkov a concussion and by the letter of the rule is a textbook five minute major for Interference. The referees gave Hagel a 5 minute major and he served a one game suspension. Ekblad’s hit on Hagel was retributory, intended to send a message to the Lightning forward not to mess with the Panthers captain, and Ekblad was punished by the Department of Player Safety. Calling this hit “borderline” is completely disingenuous as any unbiased hockey observer would note, and seriously calls into credibility the remainder of the article. Even worse, later in the article, Graham says that the Hagel hit on Barkov “appeared clean at playoff speed” (Graham). I had to check for a moment that I wasn’t reading a Tampa based publication. However, this is tame for the absolute slopfest of an article that Graham produces. Graham continues arguing that AJ Greer’s “cheap shot” on Hagel on Thursday night broke Hockey’s Code, as Greer went after a player with a known concussion history and a player his team had already delivered retribution to. No argument from me here, and his argument that Greer’s punishment from DOPS was insufficient is solid on its own merit.

Graham continues, arguing that the supplemental discipline handed out by the league for the actions on Saturday’s game, all which targeted the Tampa Bay Lightning were evidence of a bias of the NHL protecting its favorites. His argument boils down to Colin Campbell protecting his son Gregory’s team, as Gregory Campbell serves as Assistant GM for the Panthers. Colin Campbell serves as Executive Vice President and Director of Hockey Operations for the NHL. He also calls out the Head of the Department of Player Safety George Parros, for protecting his former team the Panthers. Indeed there are leaked emails that show Colin Campbell complaining about calls made by referees against his son Gregory Campbell, who did play for the Panthers from 2003-10. However, there is no evidence that Colin Campbell is still involved with the Department of Player Safety, having departed from his role there in June 2011. As for George Parros, he played in 474 career games in the NHL. Only 39 were with the Panthers. During the time Gregory Campbell has been with the Panthers organization, Panthers players have been suspended a combined 8 times for 16 games. In that timespan, the Panthers are tied with the Minnesota Wild and Tampa Bay Lightning for most Department of Player Safety suspensions given out in that time. The Panthers 16 games of DOPS suspension ranks 5th most in the NHL, and 2nd most among the three teams with the most suspensions (Tampa has had 15 games worth of suspensions with 8 suspensions). Statistically, the Department of Player Safety in a vacuum isn’t treating the Panthers any different from how it treats any other team. Granted, there may be a few plays in which the Panthers escaped supplemental discipline in which they should’ve been served with some, but that is the norm for each team in the league.

Back to Graham’s article, I’m not going to dispute his point that the Panthers love playing the villains. That’s factually correct. What I do take issue with is his phrasing of the Tampa dynasty being built solely on “cool precision”, with Florida’s hockey serving as “provocation” and Tampa’s serving as “craft” (Graham). That is wrong. If you go back and watch the games from the 2020-21 Panthers-Lightning series, you will see a Tampa team playing the game that Florida has become famous for. They took liberties, baited their opponents into penalties, and played a cool head when the officials got involved.

After Saturday’s game, the NHL came down hard on the Tampa Bay Lightning. Scott Sabourin was given a four game suspension for roughing against Aaron Ekblad, with the Department of Player Safety calling it “intentional… with the purpose of retribution and message sending” (<a href="http://

Had Kamala Harris won the 2024 Election, it is almost certain that the Panthers would’ve presented her with a Panthers theme jersey when they won the Cup. The Florida Panthers don’t control American Presidential Elections. Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Lightning organization is presented as champions for Progressive causes in Graham’s articles, hosting diverse theme nights, and helping to remove a Robert E. Lee statue. I’m not denying that Tampa has done some progressive things despite Jeff Vinik, Tampa’s owner, having made several political donations to Republican candidates. The Florida Panthers were one of the teams that stood with the Hockey is for Everyone Pride Night Campaign in 2022-23, opting to wear Pride Jerseys on the ice, and have hosted Pride nights every year since at least 2016-17. The team also has hosted Autism Acceptance Night, Hispanic Heritage Night, Black History Night and others. Graham purposefully ignores the Panthers contributions to Progressive causes, and focuses on playing them like a MAGA villain. I’m not trying to come across in this article like I’m advocating for the left, but for the purposes of this argument, I’m taking the position Graham takes, which is “Left good, Right bad” and dismantling it from the inside. Bringing in Trump and other politics is also completely irrelevant to the point. Yes, he is drawing parallels between what he perceives as the Panthers getting favorable treatment from the league, and Trump giving favorable treatment to those who support him, but that parallel is definitely a massive stretch.

Overall, the use of confirmation bias (Graham citing instances of discipline harsh to Panthers opponents, but failing to account for discipline levied against the Panthers), loaded language, ad hominem attacks on the Panthers organization, framing biases and irrelevant comparisons make this article a prime example of the decline of modern day journalism. What was once a respected field is now mocked and ignored. All that matters is clicks in today’s day and age, which is easily done with rage-bait style tactics and click bait headlines. Journalism as a whole has become extremely partisan, which is a consequence of the rhetoric in today’s society. Pieces like Graham’s are comparable in quality to the AI nonsense that is being spat out by various publications in lieu of hiring actual writers. Is my piece full of logical fallacies as well? Almost certainly, but the difference between Graham and I is clear. Graham is a professional writer who does this for a living. I’m a college student who just posts whenever I feel like it. I don’t have the same journalistic training that Graham has, yet arguably this piece is probably more likely to hold up under logical scrutiny then his. To commit one last logical fallacy on my end, you know an article is rubbish when it has even r/hockey largely defending the Panthers (Appeal to Popularity).