Paul Maurice, Stanley Cup Pregame: Edmonton Oilers at Florida Panthers Game 2

Paul Maurice, Stanley Cup Pregame: Edmonton Oilers at Florida Panthers Game 2

the heavyweight battle going on on the top six how much can that line that third line be an X Factor moving forward well moving forward and looking back because the kind of game-winning goal in game six is off tereno stick and we got we got two younger I guess A2 is kind of aged out of being called a young player but you’ve got two uh players with not a lot of time in the league and and one of the things about Vladimir is he he’s a talker and he’s a hockey talker so that’s in practice that’s uh off the ice and certainly on the bench it’s so good to have a veteran guy that is constantly talking to the game I I like that when he play with barov too because both barov and Reinhardt are like that you know they they can remember and articulate all the things that just happened on the last shift so sometimes and I don’t think this happens in the finals but during the regular season younger players will sometimes mentally drift in and out of games they just haven’t built the capacity to stay wired for the 60 minutes like the way Vlad engages those guys on the bench and keeps them wired into the game front right George um defensively you guys have been very good in the first three rounds of shutting down the big the big guns right how happy have you been with that and what kind of challenges do you have now facing you with all the big guys Edmonton’s got I don’t mean to be disrespectful to the other three rounds that we played because we’re talking about cre off and right last I mean brilliant brilliant player but this is a slightly you said big guns it’s a slightly bigger caliber more of a Magnum caliber for all you hunters will appreciate that yeah this is a different caliber um so the idea of shutting down isn’t realistic I’ll say all the same things that every coach that’s ever got away try to limit on time and space there’s a reason for it we’re going to try to limit what they can do and they will try to limit our best players as well right side second row related to that um you get a chance to see your PK against their power play how much did you feel like that was in shutting them down or at least keeping them off the scoreboard was your unit how much was your golender and and what maybe do you want to see out of them yeah it it was our penalty kill like edin has been very very strong through three rounds and we went into the Tampa series I think they had the number one power play in the league at the time I think where I would have credited the four on the ice in the first three rounds you would have to crit the five on the ice this round and cly had to make some you know very very difficult saves so it’s an interesting question cuz so much of this when you’re going through your video where are you going to aot your time into what you need to fix so when you look at your penal you together pieces that we did like and then there’s some pieces that they’re getting some chances that you don’t like how much of that can you actually fix right so first and foremost you want to be really really good at the structure that you have and then this series there’s more off structured things that we have to worry about so you cannot though then gain every that could happen it’s it’s a real dangerous thing and I think Chris no had mentioned that you want to be real careful about how much you try to cover at this point I don’t know what I think we’re at game one 101 I think we played 103 last year for the guys who were here I think we got nine new guys but for the we got a pretty good idea what we’re doing we should have and it won’t matter there there’s pieces of that we won’t control right side second row I guess Rodriguez was signed to sort of kind of fill the role of of declair but what has he kind of brought to your team and and his ability to play in different kinds of lines and different yeah that’s a good one that’s that’s a good because his game has has I like to think grown and changed but now what we’ve been able is find versatility with him so he has played left and right sides he’s taken face us he’s uh the line that he almost never played with all year is benett he came in on barkov’s left and it it was analytically phenomenal for four months so what would I do I changed it right we had injuries and that that was good for us right you complain about him at the time but then he had to go rightwing over with um londell and that was really good Lundy that’s really where londell’s season kind of took it was when Rodriguez went with him and then because of some injuries and some things that they happen he ends up on the originally on the left side with Bennett and kachuck and it’s good like his game is really really good we started win a little bit then we flipped them um both on their natural sides Matthews played his left and they both play left and right so much they’ll flip back and forth during the game and he’s a right-and drun so he has become this very versatile player for us so whether it’s injury or you’re trying to change something or the different match home to road you can play with that line a little bit it fit very well with Carter verg’s history with us over the last two years that he he rolls with barov while it’s really good and then it gets a little stale and it goes down with then then Nots good so we kind of been able to keep Carter fresh but you need people to move around into those holes he leaves and Evan’s been great with that take a few more for Coach front right yeah Paul what your thoughts on Steven Lauren since he came back into the lineup what he’s brought for you guys and then just what he brings in the room even again we’ve talked about but whether he’s playing or not just what he’s able to bring for the group yeah he he deserves a little bit of of positive acknowledgement for his season because he we we got into January February we went on a long stretch where we actually very healthy he was at a lant for a very long time and I’m not I’m not a huge believer in you know you think you’re making the playoffs so you start rolling all these guys into keep them fresh we just if we’re playing long we like it the guys that are in the lineup deserve to be in the lineup so he stayed out for a long time and then when he came back in he had worked hard and and and it was a very difficult thing right you sign here you come in you play a little bit I started him on right wing it wasn’t his best position I moved him to Center which I like and then Center left um and then he sat for a long time and he’s in his contract year that’s real for him he he wants to be a part of this and he wants to win but in January and February he wants to play in the National Hockey League what’s a job so he did all that on his own I was going to hold his hand every day I’m not going to lie to the player in tap and bads and say hey keep working you’re right there you’re going you might go in it’s 3 months later he coach come on so um here he he deserves credit for in a very very difficult situation mentally not letting up getting better and stronger he’s a big man that can skate he’s physical and one of these days we’re going to see a bar down from him because I see a thousand of in practice like he he can shoot the puck and and I’m hopeful for him it’s almost a running joke between the two of us now he’s it’s there credit to him that he did that all on his own front left uh Paul two questions one that I’ve been unserious that I’ve been waiting to ask you for two weeks but uh Pete dor said that his wife made him put money in the swear jar a couple weeks ago like what would yours look like do you have a swear jar a bucket or or what’s that look like think we had one about 15 years ago my kids were in the late to pre-teen years we probably uh my wife’s is way bigger than mine and yours would be too if you were married to me that’s completely understandable um the real question we talked so much about the two days off in between games how will it help guys like especially Bowski and and the workload that he’s been getting lately will will it be a benefit I I don’t I don’t know that there there would be necessarily for Sergey there’s not necessarily a negative because rhythm is just as big a deal for these some of these guys as anything else once they get into a series they want to keep rolling like for us that was the Ranger series it’s the it was the one was every second day um and I think guys really like that there there’s so much emotion that goes into these games you almost want every the rest of your part of life to have none no uncertainty just keep the routine just the function of the length of the flight and the travel I think it’s very smart that there’s two days off it makes it fair and at the end of the day that that’s truly what this should be it should be and even both teams work so hard to get here it should be a really even playing field with with no real disadvantage in the logistics of how the series is run so there shouldn’t be two days for one team but only one day for the other when they come back this is right it’s the way it should be last question right side third row I’m I’m just curious how do you coach a player like barov who’s so good offensively so reliable defensively what do you what do you try to teach him say to him in games like uh I don’t know maybe it’s I don’t know if I got this right but what’s what’s that line for a doctor rule number one Do no harm so um I’ll take it to an extreme and use another player I had Paul coffee so at that point in time he only had four Stanley Cups and three Norris trophies I probably wasn’t adding a lot to his game as the head coach we will interact um over the course of a year on a very small amount on his specific game there’s not a lot to teach there there aren’t it’s more what we’re trying to do and and where he can fit his game into what we’re trying to do so there’d be a little bit of that most of it would be uh related to his role as the captain the theme the mood how how he interacts as a leader then one of the things that we would have talked about more last year is every one of these captains that we have is a completely different personality and that he was encouraged not to change his to be a captain not become a Captain lead as he is he just is the captain and he how he interacts with his teammates is fantastic but it’s not necessarily the raw raw that we read about right the you read that book the captain’s class you have all these kind of different dominant personalities it’s really important that it’s just him so he kind of knows how to come to the rink every day that was a really long answer and I think that’s probably more words than I’ve used to coach Barky for the last two years right there I need change the line up line up

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice speaks before his team plays host to the Edmonton Oilers in Game 2 of the 2024 Stanley Cup Final on Monday, June 10, 2024.

The Panthers have a 1-0 lead in the series with Game 2 on Monday night at 8 p.m. (ABC) in Sunrise.

Bobrovsky Carries Panthers to Game 1 Win: https://floridahockeynow.com/florida-panthers-3-edmonton-oilers-0-game-1-stanley-cup-final-june-8-2024/

Carter Verhaeghe Playoff Menace for Panthers: https://floridahockeynow.com/carter-verhaeghe-does-it-again-for-florida-panthers-in-the-playoffs/

Gretzky Has Praise for Barkov: https://floridahockeynow.com/the-great-sasha-wayne-gretzky-has-high-praise-for-barkov/

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On Saturday night, the Panthers took a 1-0 lead in the first on a goal from Carter Verhaeghe and, thanks to 32 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky, that was enough.

Bobrovsky now has two shutouts this postseason.

Evan Rodrigues and Eetu Luostarinen also scored for the Panthers.

——

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