ICE-COLD IMPORT, Anton Lundell

Making His Way from Finland to Fort Lauderdale, Here’s How Florida Panthers Star Anton Lundell Became ‘Mr. Las Olas’

Anton Lundell will forever be known as a Stanley Cup champion. Within the Florida Panthers locker room, however, the budding NHL star also has another title: Mr. Las Olas.

“It kind of started as a joke,” Lundell smiles when asked about his unusual moniker following a practice at Baptist Health IcePlex in downtown Fort Lauderdale in April. “I feel like the culture here is you get a new nickname every week, but it just kind of stuck to me.”

Just as he was given No. 15 to wear when he arrived at the Panthers as a rookie in 2020, Lundell, a first-round pick a few months prior, says his nickname was bestowed to him just as quickly. “I lived around the area,” he says, recalling his early days living in Fort Lauderdale. “I didn’t have much to do, so I tried every restaurant [on Las Olas]. I feel like the guys saw me a lot.”

Not long after teammates picked up on his routine, Mr. Las Olas was born. “It’s sticking around,” he smiles. While the origin of his nickname was simply location-based, Lundell’s play on the ice also now matches the flash and fun of the iconic downtown thoroughfare.

No longer a wide-eye teenager, Lundell, who’s now 23 and in his fourth season with the Panthers, has evolved into one of the top young stars in the NHL.

A tenacious forward, he’s quickly become a favorite as well for his showmanship and celebrations after he scores.
Helping the Panthers capture their first-ever Stanley Cup, he ranked fourth on the team with 17 points during the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. In the championship-clinching 2-1 win over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of the Cup Final, he assisted on the opening goal.

“It’s a dream come true, for sure,” Lundell says while harkening back to the moment he hoisted Lord Stanley over his head at Amerant Bank Arena. “It’s something you always dream about. It kind of feels so far. To be able to win it in my third season here was something I could only dream about. It felt so unreal. It was hard to really understand what happened when we won. I was able to be a big part of what we’ve been building here and a big part of the team. Just going forward, I feel like all the experience that I got, and the team got, is going to make all of us that much stronger. You get hungrier the more you achieve.”

Even though he’s already accomplished one of his lifelong dreams, Lundell believes everyday living in Fort Lauderdale feels like a dream come true as well. Whether he’s strolling down the sidewalks of Las Olas in a pair of flip flops or cruising over the bridges of the intercoastal in his golf cart, his off days are spent enjoying everything the city has to offer.

If you’re out for a night on the town,

you might be lucky enough to spot him unwinding with a few sushi rolls just a few steps away from the Atlantic Ocean at Takato, or carbo-loading on any number of delicious pasta dishes with a few teammates at Louie Bossi’s Ristorante.

“Coming over was a change, but I felt right away at home,” he says. “It’s such an amazing place to live. There’s a lot of things to do in Fort Lauderdale and around Las Olas, so you always find something. From downtown to the beach, it’s been amazing to live here so far.”

Growing up just outside of Finland’s capital of Helsinki in the city of Espoo, Lundell’s life couldn’t be any more different than back home. Out are saunas, elk and snowstorms. In are sandy beaches, iguanas and sunshine. “I’ve been here almost four years. Time flies,” he says. “I feel like whenever we go to cold cities now, I kind of have that Florida skin. I’m used to the warm weather right now, so I feel extra cold whenever we travel to a cold city now.”

Still, he’s managed to find the perfect balance between being a Finn and a Floridian. In addition to always staying stocked up on Finnish chocolate – “Karl Fazer, the best!” – he has multiple Finnish teammates on the Panthers to make him feel at home, including the team’s captain, Aleksander Barkov, and one of his linemates, Eetu Luostarinen. “We talk Finnish whenever we’re not around the other guys,” he says with a sly grin. “We don’t want them to get mad and think we speak bad about them with our secret language.”

When it comes to the Panthers, the secret’s out. Still basking in the glow of their Stanley Cup, Lundell says he and his teammates can’t make it too far down Las Olas these days without being spotted by fans hoping to snap a picture or just offer their congratulations.

Even though the area is most often associated with designer clothes and high fashion, Lundell says you’d be hard-pressed to spend time in Fort Lauderdale these days without seeing at least a few patrons sporting hats or shirts emblazoned with the Panthers’ logo.

For Mr. Las Olas, that’s what it’s all about.

“It’s a very cool thing to see myself from day one until now, to see how big Fort Lauderdale, how big of a hockey town it’s becoming,” he says. “I really like living here. It’s awesome.”

Mr. Las Olas

Anton Lundell (wikipedia)