Paul Maurice, Panthers Postgame: Florida 3-0 After Rout of Ottawa Senators

Paul Maurice, Panthers Postgame: Florida 3-0 After Rout of Ottawa Senators

Well, coach, six different goal scorers, a multitude of players in the score sheet. What impressed you most with your team’s balance? Well, I liked their power play for sure. That that’s the driver of the game for us. Um, both units producing chances and goals and then liked our gap a lot all over the ice. I thought we were a very difficult team to handle with the back end as mobile as they have, but we were pretty good in that department. What can you say of the confidence those two units are playing with on the power play? Yeah, different looks. I think uh the one’s still finding its way. They’re going to get chances cuz they’re so skilled. The other one’s really fast, and that’s that’s great that you have a different style of power play, so they’re not as easy to game. Um but confidence and speed, like the young guys, uh well, the young guy, we don’t have that many young guys, but I like the way Samo’s moving out there, too. Obviously solid all around through these first three games. What are you most proud of with how what the guys have done out there so far? Yeah, I I think I think their attention to detail has been really really good. They’ve uh come in with a focus that we have to be right in the systems part of our games and all of the kind of unfund things that you have to do to win. They’ve they’ve worked hard in those areas. Bob’s Bob’s talked a lot about the system. How easy is it now to fall back on that system when you guys have built it over these years and you’ve had success with it? They just know it. That that’s the biggest thing. We don’t we haven’t had a lot of turnover. Uh they have had some success with it. There’s nothing unusual about our system. It’s there’s lots of teams running versions of what we run, but they adhere to it. They’ve had enough success with it. I think they believe in even though it is even though it is just three games in and you’re right, there’s not been not a lot of turnover. The system is the system. This doesn’t look like a team that’s just three games in. It looks like there’s a lot of polish for this early. Uh guys, you know, you know, it’s it’s it’s more adherence, I think, than anything the early part of the year. Um I think they’re very focused on what they’re trying to do. I think we know how hard it is to win this league and you got to be right in those areas to even have a remote chance of winning a playoff game and sometimes it takes you a little while to get everybody not even on the same page. That regular season hockey promotes sometimes individual plays just because the other team is learning their system. So you don’t see the same things by the time you hit the playoffs. Everything’s pretty much you know what’s going to happen. you just but they’ve I think the Rodriguez line has had a really big impact on the way we play. Um I think they’ve been especially very good and and for kind of smaller quick guys they’ve done hard things that make us look really solid through the lineup outsiders. Sometimes we look at guys, you say, “Oh, this guy’s got to step with the injuries you have.” And Anton Lindell and Mackey seem to be fit that category and first three games look like they’re doing the job. Yeah, it Anton has just kind of his continuation on his important play force last year. He got put into a role that was critical that if it’s not Barkov, it’s Lundell against some really dynamic players throughout the playoffs and he’s just growing and mature. He’s a veteran player now at a at a young age, but we have a high expectation of what he’s able to do, what he should be able to do. I think more importantly, he has that expectation for himself. You guys have had uh 11 goals this year, nine different goal scorers. A lot of guys have talked about how important the depth scoring has been so far. Just how pleased are you that what it is? Yeah, it’s going to be the critical piece. We you’re going to have your We’re going to have more nights of two and three like the first two games than we will like tonight. So, you need to have as many people as you can come to the rink. believe in they can score that they they have that positive feel. I think each line has generated enough that they’re feeling positive about their game so they don’t really need to change it. People may say, “Okay, they’re three and0 at home, but wait till they go, you know, got a big road trip coming up.” But no, and I’m fine with No, but I’m I’m fine with that. Like it is it’s just three games, but we couldn’t do any more than we did. and we’re not going to have we’re not exuberant about our start, but but we like we I think we understand the start. These are the things that we did well. We got three wins. We’ve had good goalending. Uh good good special teams and we’re going to need that. Maybe the special teams are are more in focus now with the injuries that we have. This team’s already as tight as can be, but how nice is to have a long road trip early in the season just to get everyone back? Really? Yeah. Really good. We’ve part of it was the training camp design. The veteran players practiced only with veteran players. We had a shorter period of time, but even with that, the first road trip of the year is always really great. Seven for seven on the penalty till so far. What have you seen that you’ve liked from that unit specifically? Um I I don’t think that they’ve changed much. We look a little different on it because of the personnel that’s out, but the structure of it th those those defenseman have done a really fine job uh being able to play off different forwards. We’ve run a lot of different uh combinations there with the D have done a nice job in that structure and seven penalties in three games. No, we’ve been pretty disciplined team and go back when you look at the back end of every playoff series that we have, we don’t take an awful lot of penalties. Um and that’s the other we just can’t stress our PK unit. We just can’t we can’t be in the box all night.

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice meets the media after his team beat the Ottawa Senators 6-2 on Oct. 11, 2025.

Florida (3-0) is only the third defending Stanley Cup champ to win its first three games of a new season in 25 years.

The Panthers got goals from Brad Marchand, Evan Rodrigues, Aaron Ekblad, Anton Lundell, Mackie Samoskevich, and Sam Reinhart; Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves.

Florida kicks off a five-game road trip Monday in Philadelphia.

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Video Courtesy Florida Panthers / Panther Vision