Paul Maurice, Panthers Pregame: Philadelphia Flyers at Florida; Nov. 26, 2025

Paul Maurice, Panthers Pregame: Philadelphia Flyers at Florida; Nov. 26, 2025

I think in the past it’s been true. I think 20 games in is the start of the season, not the first five, but at 20. And you there’s usually a reason that you are where you are in the standings. This is a year that I haven’t seen before. These are the teams that are two or three points on the outside. Some of them are considered to be strong playoff teams. And then the lead dog isn’t 12 points ahead of the eighth place team. So this is very very compact because all those rebuilds now are coming into strength and there’s still some good strong teams. So I don’t I don’t think that the mark tells you if you’re a point out of the playoffs right now you’re not out of the playoffs because we are and we’re probably only three or four points out of first place. Um and we’ve certainly had our challenges here. Each team will go through it. We’re not going to be unique. We may end up having more man games at the end of the year than anybody else on our side, but but other teams are going to go through exactly what we’re going through. So, we’ll all have our challenges. Over the last week and a half, you guys won a couple of games by scoring eight goals. You beat Jersey in a one- nothing shutout. Do you feel like there’s been an adaptability to to kind of a style you need to use to win games? How are you winning in different ways? Certainly different style of opponent. So, Jersey is the last Eastern Conference opponent and that and the rest of them. It’s a completely different style of offensive game. We’ve been our we put as much offense up in the Edmonton game as we did in the other two. We just didn’t hit the net on a whole bunch of stuff and some things didn’t go for us. Um, but it won’t look like that against Philly if we just Why can’t you just score eight every night? Well, the way they play is going to minim minimize some of our chances and and then we just have to mentally be comfortable that we were in the Jersey game. It was a It was a tight, well played game. Both goalies were really good. The offense that was generated was honest. There was no cheat by either team. I expect to see that here tonight, right? Our challenge is how do you play when you come off eight? You know, you you you can’t go into this game, what happens when you score and you have the puck a lot and you feel that, well, if we just play our game, we should have the puck a lot. But that the way they defend isn’t going to allow that. As a matter of fact, if you’re hanging on to it, slowing down, looking for places to make plays against that defense, you’re going to have a long, long night. So, getting ourselves back to the jersey mentality is critical. Do you look at this swing here is maybe like almost like a backtoback with with the holiday in the middle of a 4:00 start. Yeah. I mean, I know you’ve got a day off in I think it’s more pronounced for for people on the outside. Like Thanksgiving is a is a big deal in the United States. It’s not quite as big a deal for the other countries. Um the only two days right now are game day and non-game day in how we live. So yeah, maybe there’s more family come in, but we got a little older team. They’re kind of used to it and some of them will it’s Christmas time coming up. So it’s it’s a normal year for us. I don’t find that this should affect either of these next two games. I wonder with the four o’clock the four o’clock starts unusual, right? We haven’t we the other night Tampa we had a five. I don’t think we’ve had one of those in a long time. Sometimes that’s a little bit of a challenge for you. Um, but right now playing every second night, these guys don’t need to be on the ice quite as much and we’re running guys bigger minutes than they normally run with our injuries. So, we’re good with not having a lot of practice time. In terms of time when Gustav couldn’t get many games and now you’re getting number 500 tonight. I know you’ve seen so many guys where they hear so many stories, but how much do you just appreciate kind of his story? Yeah, it’s all his, right? He like he owns that. Um the the the Gustaf story is the kind of story that you tell your kids if you work really hard, you know, you got to stay with your your passion, your dream, but you have the courage to give all that you have. There’s a great line in the book, psychology of winning, I think, is that character is the arduent pursuit of excellence without the guarantee of reward. And that would be Gustaf Forest, right? because he he’s he’s been our lead fitness man here for the years that I’ve been here. Um, and he did that when there wasn’t a guarantee he was going to play in the NHL. He didn’t know if he was going to but he stayed with it like he he didn’t miss a workout. He didn’t he never got mentally defeated. He never um gave up on any part of his game. So that one hit wonder. He put about five hard hard years in that, right? And then boom, everything kind of comes together. I think he was physically almost a late developer. He couldn’t put weight on, he couldn’t put the power on. And then he just went and earned it in the gym. And now he’s big and fast. One of the most powerful guys skaters in the National Hockey League. So he’s earned all of it. And what a find, right? Pulling off waiverss with co and everything, taxi squads and all that. I mean, maybe it doesn’t happen, but it does. I think eventually it does. I think a whole bunch of good things happen, too. Is he hit the right team at the right place, but um I’m pretty sure I think when we were in Winnipeg, we put a put a claim on him, too. I I think there’s a bunch of teams that were on to the fact that that he could do some good things. I don’t think anybody predicted. I think his game has shifted. Like, he’s he’s probably got 11 points, right? Jones, he’s got about 12. Jones is on every power play. I mean, the only reason he’s not on a power play is we we need to conserve him. It’s just how hard he plays, the minutes that he plays. But that was probably what he was selling early in his career at 2122. A fairly skilled guy could shoot the puck a little bit. And now what he’s selling is he’s for me the best shutdown defenseman in the league against elite skill. If you get the McDavids and Cros of the world, you need a certain style of player and that screws stuff for them. I think you check those podcasts telling everyone he’s back out there on the ice. Just what have you seen? What are the initial reports? Does everything kind of feel? Yeah, he he he hit the ice twice uh before he went back up to see the last week before he went back up to see the doctor. What I’ll tell you is on an onoff schedule now. Skate one stays off trains uh just to keep the soreness out. He’ll stay on that until he hits certain markers that he’s gotten enough power and strength and then we’ll put him on two, one off, on two, one off. He’s still quite a ways away, but he’s back on the ice and he wasn’t two weeks ago, so we’re taking him. And you said when do you think that he might rejoin practice or just even just to be on the ice with you? Yeah, not not until he can go almost at full full tilt or come in non-cont. I don’t know the answer to that. I think we’re it was December, January is what we’re told. But still in it’s a it’s an 8week window. But that’s where these injuries are. He has to just hit a bunch of milestones before he can get push. I can’t tell you when he’s coming back with us. Other than Sergey plays, no.

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice meets the media before his team plays host to the Philadelphia Flyers on Nov. 26, 2025.

Gus Forsling will play in his 500th NHL game tonight.

Florida is coming off a 8-3 win over the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena on Monday.

A.J. Greer scored twice and had an assist; Carter Verhaeghe had a goal and two assists. Daniil Tarasov made 36 saves for his second win with the Panthers.

Sam Reinhart extended his scoring streak to seven games with a goal and two assists.

Video Courtesy Florida Panthers / @FlaPanthers / Panthers Vision

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