Paul Maurice, Panthers Pregame: Florida Back Home, Faces Pittsburgh Penguins

I I we don’t have a a different feel up until last week of home and road. Um lots of confidence playing on the road and an equal amount of confidence playing at home. But the key is not thinking that you’re home that this is somehow going to be easy that there is a shift. I don’t want that. I don’t want that feeling a difference at home. You should get energy from the fans, not needed or expected coming to the rink as a component of your game. So you love playing in front of your hometown fans. It’s it’s a great building. We get lots of energy, but that can’t be something that we’d say, “Well, we don’t have to execute tonight. We don’t have to hit real hard because our fans are going to wire us up. We we want to play the same game technically, uh, the same kind of emotion, but being at home, the last change, those kind of things are important for us.” Now, Paul, with Mackie Samich, last year played with Bennett. This year he’s with Rody Bquest, three other guys on the power play. Just for a young guy getting touches with so many guys in the top line. How important is that? And what have you seen from him so Yeah, that that’s not like a gift where I’m trying to get him going or anything like that. It is it is now he’s put him on the second line last year in some ways to be carried a little bit, sheltered a little bit. Uh I’ve got him on the third line because he’s a really in a style that was probably our stylewise tech our best line. Um so he’s and then it’s number one power play unit because he’s puts him at the net and and he’s growing and learning there. He’s got the skill set. We’ve always felt that he had the skill set to have a right-hand shot, but he’s matured as a player. So, he has developed here now to a point that he’s on that unit because he’s the right guy to put there and he he’s not he’s a part of a line now being carried by two other guys. Anything new on Donovan with the visa stuff? No, it’s all this Donovan and Noah. Um, we have to wait for them to get their visas before they can play. coach has been a strong start to the season. Yeah. Stands out to you about the way they kicked off the year. They have really good connected speed. I would describe it that way. They um they come together, they move together. There’s not nearly as much stretch in the game to one-on-one play. Uh but they are very very good at making plays in tight areas with speed. So, they’ve earned it. I don’t think they’ve been lucky. I think they’ve earned their start. We just talked to Seth Jones. says it’s a mental thing, but the first game after a long road trip usually or the first home game after a long road trip sometimes you guys don’t have your legs or Yeah. Everybody. But is that more of a West Coast to East Coast thing? I mean, or is it just just being away so long sometimes it comes and hits you? No, I think the road taxes you. So your first game at home is at the end of you being most taxed. Usually if you look at, you know, the things that we measure or just anecdotally, how’s a guy feeling? as a road trip goes on, you’re not recovering at home. Uh it’s just not the same. You’re on an airplane a lot more. You are least recovered when you come off that road trip. We’ve been actually very good coming off a road trip and playing uh and winning. So that’s that’s our expectation that we should have had have the legs because we can just fight through it. Maybe that’s just on structure tonight, but it’s mostly when you look at the graph of recovery, they will be least recovered when they get off the airplane after a road trip. So, you got a couple of days at home. If you really look for a two-day block at home, you get a two-day block at home that that your team will recover in a two-day block, but we haven’t had one, you know, two-day non-game, so we wouldn’t have had that since the start of the season. It won’t come till after the Vegas game. Yeah. How much are you looking forward to next week having having a couple days? Well, I’m not looking past it. This is something that happens. This isn’t a one-off in a year. It’s part of the life in the NHL. So, you got to get good at it. So, we look can’t wait to be rested to play our best hockey. You’ll be waiting all year. It’s not coming. So, this is part of the life. Um, we had a longer one. We went I think our first year we went two calendar months without two days off at home. I believe that that is hard to get over. So, we feel that we do enough on the road with recovery uh to mitigate as best we possibly can. The fact that we win game five of a road trip, we had a similar event last year. We won game four and five of a long road trip had lost the first three. So, we do all that we can to get these guys feeling as good as we possibly can, but we know that that’s that’s the low point in the in the graph of how they’re going to feel. Do you think there’ll be any dip in the emotion after coming off the Marshall game in Boston to ramp it back up again? It might be singular for Marshy. All our games in Boston are emotional like every they have been for three years. That was actually a way quieter game than I thought it was going to be. I thought that thing was going to blow right up based on their personnel. They had lost four in a row. We had lost four in a row. We usually get after it. The gloves are off on the drop of the puck. That’s what I thought was coming. Um, it was an emotional day, a wonderful day for Brad. Uh, he finds a way to get fired up. He’s fired up at the morning skate. So, we But I I don’t think for our team going into Boston and have a a big wired up game is pretty standard for us. Pittsburgh after all these years. I would say almost not surprised, right? because they’ve um haven’t just been really good. They’ve been Hall of Fame good their whole careers. And I spent a little bit of time with Yiny Malcin in in Russia in the year that it was off. And I I was amazed at how hard he worked because he didn’t have to. He’s just better than everybody else in the league. There’s no cameras. And how hard he worked in practice. Like he was a pure he drove hard to be a great performer. He wanted to win. He wanted to score goals. who wanted to drive and I think they have such a high expectation and then you know a historic team like from ’09 straight through to their two Stanley Cups just an incredibly fantastic team and depth those two men driving it of course then they had the they have a couple years and now I would imagine there’s just a tremendous amount of excitement they got some really good young players coming in the future coming in and and they’re probably really fired up because now Now they got a chance to win again and that that’s got to be very very exciting for them. Sergey

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice speaks in Fort Lauderdale before his team faces the Pittsburgh Penguins on Oct. 23, 2025.

The Panthers snapped a four-game losing streak with a 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday.

Florida defenseman Seth Jones will square off against his younger brother Caleb for just the second time in their NHL careers; Sam Bennett plays in his 700th NHL game.

The Panthers Have Done It Again, Repeat as Cup Champs: https://floridahockeynow.com/florida-panthers-repeat-stanley-cup-champions-2025/

Panthers Get Their New Rings. Yeah, They Nice: https://floridahockeynow.com/stanley-cup-champion-florida-panthers-get-rings-yeah-they-nice/

Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning Bringing Hockey Outdoors – In Florida: https://floridahockeynow.com/nhl-outdoor-hockey-miami-tampa-florida-panthers-lightning/

For the most in-depth coverage of the Florida Panthers:
— Visit Florida Hockey Now — https://floridahockeynow.com

— Subscribe to Florida Hockey Now: https://floridahockeynow.com/membership-account/subscribe-to-fhn/

— Like Our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/flahockeynow/

— On Bluesky:

* https://bsky.app/profile/georgerichards.bsky.social

—Follow us on Twitter: 

* https://twitter.com/GeorgeRichards

* https://twitter.com/thegovman

Video Courtesy Florida Panthers / Panther Vision

2 comments
Leave a Reply