Paul Maurice: Florida Panthers Drop to Last in East, Lose to Toronto Maple Leafs

Well, I would say I mean I liked our first period, but you’re down two and I didn’t love our second and great individual. Well, great effort by Lundy and Rhino to get us back into that. We are at a really um small margins in in our game. I liked our penalty killer. I mean, I think probably both teams penalty kills were better than their power plays, but um it’s you got to in these situations just stay with it is is the most important thing. But then we got to get better, right? We got to get um some higherend performances out of guys. I mean, I they’re playing as hard as they can. The puck’s not as friendly as it used to be. There’s tension on the stick. That’s that’s normal and you see that when you lose a funeral. Um so that finding that good feeling and sometimes it’s not a whole game. You just got to start with the period. And I thought we did that tonight even though it felt bad. Um and I felt that in a bunch of our games. What’s that balance right now? the reality of we all know you’re missing bunch of your best players versus these games count and that’s well the two are separate right the two are separate this is our hockey team and even if loostering comes back sometime toward the end nobody else is so this is what we got and that’s why you have to find a a new way to grind and maybe new wins at times and build your confidence in smaller pieces in the game and not look at the record as as the forward motion because you you know you always start playing a little bit better before you start winning and I think we’ve had that in our games. We have to have a bit of patience with what we’re doing and then we do we got to get a little stronger performance out of a few guys because we just don’t have the margin for error. Is it hard to have that patience? Oh yeah, it’s brutal but we know what we got. We know the situation that we’re in and uh I think we all have enough experience to handle it. Give up the two too early then. Bob’s effort to keep you guys in. No, he made a bunch of big saves when our game does slightly open up and it needs to at at points. He made a whole bunch of big saves for sure. How do you deal with guys looking at the standings and all that? Or do you are your is your team experienced enough to not worry about that kind of stuff? I don’t mind them looking at the standings. Keep the urgency. We sit here and say we got lots of hockey left, but we’ve been through situations where we had to crawl back from nine, but that’s with a healthy lineup. That’s hard to do. So I don’t mind them looking at it and have acceptance of perspective. You have to accept where you’re at and that’s part of it. We’re out on the outside looking in and we may have a few games in hand, but we got to win those games in hand. And then uh the perspective is is that that you know we’ve got to crawl out of this. We’re not going to turn this thing. We’re not going to turn to a full sprint. We just don’t have that. No Carter obviously for good reason. Just how that flipped some of your your lineup tonight. just yeah to change uh you know what it’s it’s not even something you think about when you get a it’s a blessed event in the Verhagi household you’re happy for him and you enjoy it we’ve had funerals babies all those kind of things that we’ve that have entered into our season that’s just life and that has to be dealt with before the game obviously a lot of opportunity here right now Jackson gets his first game yeah I I liked this game he’s got some speed he’s a natural center which is great with the three guys that we have injured at center so I I thought he he did some good things. I mean, I’m after the first period, we were having a tough start with one of our lines. We moved him into the three hole and I thought he was fine. Even you talk about the margins aren’t very big. And when you have a few breakdowns here and there, it does appear to be costly. How do you approach that? And is that just something you’ve got to do every day or? Um, yeah, we have enough players here that that know the basic foundation of what we’re getting to, and that’s all we’re talking about now is just the basics of the foundation of the game. And there’s a good time to whip your team, and then there’s a good time to rally them. And we’re in rally mode now. Thank you, coach. Okay, guys. Thank you.

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice meets the media after his team lost 4-1 to the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025 in Sunrise.

This was the first time the two teams have played since Florida won Game 7 against the Leafs in the Eastern Conference semifinals in May. The two teams came into the game tied for last in the Eastern Conference standings.

Florida now sits in the East cellar alone.

The Panthers have lost three straight and four of five — including their past four at home.

Tuesday, Sam Reinhart scored a shorthanded goal in his 800th NHL game; Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 26 shots in the loss.

Florida plays host to the Predators on Thursday.

Video Courtesy Florida Panthers / @FlaPanthers / Panthers Vision

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4 comments

  3. we truly have the best coach . Only so much u can do. Look at our injury list. It’s crazy . Torts said it right on tv tonight , it’s not the panthers rn .. can’t wait to get our guys back

  4. When he says "we don't have that" it's honest. We can't score consistently and when we do its in gulps. Then we dive down and sit on the bottom and wait. Can't do it like that. Someone has to start scoring consistently.

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