Paul Maurice, Florida Panthers Stanley Cup Final v. Edmonton Oilers; Practice 6/4/24

Paul Maurice, Florida Panthers Stanley Cup Final v. Edmonton Oilers; Practice 6/4/24

yeah you have anything for us today oh I was thinking about that I us to come up with like uh current affairs or something except I want to talk about anything that heavy so you guys have to come you know what you guys are in the media what’s going on you ever see the show current affairs it’s like Access Hollywood yeah so that would be a no that yeah I don’t know where that came from but um injury news it sounds like you guys have some stuff going on with barkov kulakov well if you come to moral your story would be different no they’re they’re f they’re just getting something worked on and we know that if we can get them just enough time so everybody skates tomorrow unless somebody got hurt today tun in is that the nice thing about I mean having this time off as opposed to last year where you guys were sitting there waiting for an opponent where now you and Edmonton are kind of on the same schedule same schedule you want fairness you know what in truth you want both teams healthy you will both fairly reasonably similar schedules and way they go um we it’s probably the perfect amount of time off you can take a couple of days then you can push a little bit in the middle and then get ready for the game so we are as healthy as you can be as a hockey club and both those guys will be skating full on no more this year over year I guess maybe with knocking on wood have you thought about just how nice it is comparatively last year you went into the final and then we went into the final with an unknown because it’s because we lost L St in the last game late in the last game so go from this is what our team looks and we think and then you step into the next game and happens to be the final but you you don’t know what your team looks like then because you’re such an important piece yeah but you know what that’s all this part because neither team is necessarily getting healthy to the final right you’re here today nobody falls off a curb you know it’s just those are all the risks of of alive being alive so we’re healthy we’re good you guys have a 6 hour flight each way to Edmonton I kind of asking everybody like what do you like to do on the flight are you working are you sleeping are you watching TV or movies uh the first two I’m not I used to hate flying like absolute full-blown sweat agonizer boat before getting on the plane and then you just after a while you just don’t care right like it’s it’s normal so I can sleep on a plane pretty good uh but that it’s the best place uh to get work done watch you can watch as much hockey as you can stand on an airplane and uh read a little bit to um try to get some sleep do you do anything these days away from hockey to like is it just waake to sleep all I do is try to get myself in a place that I can go to work the next day like you try to get enough sleep uh relax for sure but I don’t go for walks and sometimes find a restaurant a lot of times just stay at home hang out with my cats you know I mean that’s true grown man um no you know one of how special these playoff runs are and during the season it’s a bit of a grind but you kind of have to force yourself there do other things so it’s not your entire life uh I do not have a healthy wor work life balance but in some ways it’s okay in the blasts right you know supposed to so uh I watch hockey every night you got to come up with something on the off days now but that’s okay Coach just spoke to Niko Mika for a while I know you mentioned when he first came in that he he played exactly kind of game that you guys want to play and now as you’ve gotten this deep into a playoff run his first season with the team how important is a a big sturdy durable defensive minded guy who does all the little things that can get across the line he can just close the he was an interesting guy you know that’s all it goes back to Bill finding these guys because we were watching video on him when he was in St Louis and thought that that would be good but it might take ways to get them could make the trade for him watched them then in New York we just and both those teams at the time played a different defensive game than we did and the kind of thought was if we can take him out of that and put him into something that’s probably built more to his style he could Excel and I thought he’d be good but I didn’t know that he’d be this good I know you say you don’t understand goalies but I was wondering if you ever wondered what Bob is doing before a practice if you asked Rob about that or didn’t care or didn’t care to understand or what how how would you some questions you don’t want to ask then you may have to form an opinion we I don’t I don’t when the first time I saw it but I’m leaving the rank after the pregame and I’m heading home and I look down the hallway and he’s Olympic lifting in the hallway he’s playing that night I what the hell he’s doing but I don’t need an opinion on that it’s really important that sometimes you just shut up and keep your eyes close to keep moving so that’s kind Sergey is an intelligent man and a very focused man and he is designed a program that allows him to be great at this point in his career and while there has to be a certain amount of rigidity in that there hasn’t been so much that he hasn’t been able to change in more and maybe learned so so he’s designed a program with a an eye on continuing to learn and change that program but there wouldn’t but we got a a lot of very committed athletes in there that that work very very hard and their nutrition’s right and all this but I don’t know that I’ve met somebody like Sergey and I bet you I know about 10% of it there a whole bunch of this stuff we never see go home he’s got his whole he’s got a whole program for everything to see somebody that committed that’s inspiring right when you’re rolling out of bed in the morning you don’t feel like doing a video you’re kind of going well Bob’s probably get three hours working on something I better get to the ring is he a Porky goal you have other goalies is he a normal goalie no I don’t I don’t I I find him to be a peaceful man very interesting um we were in Vancouver last year weather wasn’t bad it was a little bit chilly out and uh things weren’t going great at that time and we went for our just went for a walk together um I talked very little bit about hockey but because I had a little bit of a Russian culture life experience just asked him questions an incredibly interesting guy if you could read a transcript of that conversation you would think the other guy was 57 and I was whatever 30ish this very wise man old soul he’s had some experience very sophisticated in some ways in in understanding life so really interesting conversation his his part mine was PR what’s a snippet of that kind of the transcript well I I no I mean it was him telling me about growing up and what his life was like there because I was interested having a a little bit of an idea of what it’s what it’s like there and that was all it’s an incredible life experience those of us who were born and raised in North America you don’t get to see some of the challenges but a guy like Sergey would have had to have gone through daily to become great and he’s done it so he’s I after the season’s over I recommend anyo he’s a very interesting guy naron as well that story about him and his grandfather I’m sure you’ve read it it there’s a lot of people that have dealt with challenges to get to Greatness and and they work hard at it he’s earned it speaking of since we bosi one of the and if you don’t understand gold IM that’s me list but but he’s 35 and sort of reinvented I don’t want to say reinvented but in the past year he’s now he’s considered one of the top rys in the league again what has what has changed I don’t know right I wasn’t here early on um I do think that we play I think our team got better I think that’s a lot to do it right and and there might be a I don’t know if an inflection point or a threshold when when when you can give a guy just a little better chance to make that safe confidence starts to build daily and things come back so we would say that if we know Sergey he is uh very committed he’s not casual with anything that he does so the losses and the goals he would certainly um look at them carry them try to learn from them and if there’s a lot of them you can make it over well by I don’t know about that I know that he had done everything that he could do to be great and I think that the team in front of them improved and the two of them kind of went hand in hand but we’re a lot better hockey team with the way he’s played you go back to him coming back into the Boston series but it was true even before that right he kind of came he got hurt is what happened and uh but from the start of the series in a very very I mean the mar sa on the breakway something they still I still you know what it’s funny still talk about that and for me I was fine until e blad went to sweep it and that’s when my heart went my throw like it’s good just just the speed of it he’s going down he’s it’s going to go five hole right he’s going to bun that thing in the that but he’s been some big S coach obviously there’s still round left but for Posta o this is the farthest they’ve ever been they both played over a thousand games in the NHL this is why they came here was to get in series like this and moments like this just what extra energy do you get from those guys especially maybe during a week like this I imagine both those guys are on Cloud9 right now yeah so when you come to the when when they come to the team what you just said is true we got a pretty good team uh both different one signed off injury and one is kind of that veteran trade guy who who’s well established in terms of leadership and character but what’s good I and I’m going to speak for them the special part of this year clearly is playing in June but that’s not what’s most special about here is it’s it’s having a especially for a whale having a year like this in your Hockey Life and me he may have had phenomenal times other places but you just when you guys come to practice every day you see it he’s worked hard he’s in a room full of men and he people that he can interact with he’s got tons of friends he’s part of it he also knows he’s not playing another 15 years right there just you’re on the back nine he might be on the 10th hole and he’s got lots of hockey left body sees not on the front line anymore so you cherish that a lot harder thanks everybody thank you I don’t think you cherish something harder CH you cherish it more deeply sorry about that

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice speaks after his team’s first practice in preparation for the 2024 Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday, June 4, 2024, in Fort Lauderdale.

The Panthers will play in the Stanley Cup Final for a second straight year; Edmonton is vying for its sixth title and first since 1990. This is the Oilers’ first trip to the Final since 2006.

Game 1 is Saturday in Sunrise at 8 p.m. (ABC).

Stanley Cup or Bust! Florida Panthers Moving On: https://floridahockeynow.com/stanley-cup-final-florida-panthers-2-new-york-rangers-1-game-6/

Meet the Edmonton Oilers: https://floridahockeynow.com/what-to-know-edmonton-oilers-stanley-cup-final-florida-panthers/

Panthers Have Unfinished Business to Take Care Of: https://floridahockeynow.com/not-finished-florida-panthers-hungry-to-complete-redemption-tour/

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Florida took out the New York Rangers in 6; Edmonton did the same to Dallas.

On Saturday, the Panthers beat the Rangers 2-1.

Florida took a 2-0 lead on goals from Sam Bennett and Vladimir Tarasenko.

Artemi Panarin beat old friend Sergei Bobrovsky (23 saves) to make it a 1-goal lead but the Panthers hung on.

——

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