Paul Maurice, Panthers Playoff Pregame: Florida @ Toronto Maple Leafs, Game 1

Paul Maurice, Panthers Playoff Pregame: Florida @ Toronto Maple Leafs, Game 1

every time you come back, especially this time of year. Oh, the excitement of the the situation, the uh playoffs is different than the regular season. It’s exciting when you come in here. I think players come into here and there’s a lot of family for a lot of them, but then this is a completely different feel. The energy, it’s a a fun time of year, obviously, to be involved in games. And then the way the playoffs are structured, these are all division rivals. So we have a history with each other now. And uh it makes the story I think more interesting. Paul, what’s different about the Craig Ruby coach leaves us to what you faced in the past? Well, personnel would be one thing. I mean, quite a bit different looking team than they were just on on different names on the back. And I I think there’s more patience in their game in that uh and maybe in the past it was an attack mindset kind of offensively all the time and now they’re more patient. They’ll put more pucks deep. They’ll be more patient with the pucks out. Um so a bit more I would say maybe a bit more of a mature game. In general, how much do you feel home ice matters in today’s NHL and how much has that changed from back in the day a little bit? I I don’t feel that it’s as important as it used to be. I think some of it goes to the change in the structure of teams. So when the um all the rule changes in ‘ 06 allowed younger, faster, more skilled players to come in and be impactful early, which means you didn’t have the room for the checking line. I think there’s still a couple teams that run a checking line. They have very strong home records. So for me, Carolina with Stall and Winnipeg with Lowry. So there’s there’s less of that delineation between the lines. So at home, if you’ve got a hard checking line, you’ve got a huge advantage. So there is a difference in some series that’s still there, but there’s just not as much in u the rest of the teams. It’s kind of depth one to four. Sure, each team has a matchup they want, but but coaches don’t fight for as hard for the matchup because there just isn’t a big a difference between the lines. So, I think the changes in the rules allowed young players to come in. There’s more skill in our game. It pushed out a little bit of the the grinding pure checking third line idea, third or fourth line checkers. So, the home ice was kind of lost with that. Well, there’s a three guys in that leave room, you know, pretty well from last year. Uh they were talking about sharing secrets with the Leafs about you guys. Are there such things? Is that something you’d worry about what they know about you guys that you might not know that the Leafs know now? No, the there’s no there’s no Cinderella stories in the last eight teams that are left. They’re all really really good teams and they are good teams aside from talent, but the one thing they all share is consistency. So you can watch if you pick one of our games in our last series and we pick one of Toronto’s games and you watch it, you know what they do there. There’s no there’s no aberration. The good teams do the exact same thing over and over and over again. And in the end, probably the team that wins is the most consistent team. So the uh the words that we use, everybody has their own culture, their own glossery. uh that that they use. But at the end of the day, between analytics and the video that we get and the software that we have to break it down, there’s just no secrets, right? It’s the most consistent team is the easiest team to prescout, but that team usually wins. So knowing what they do doesn’t help anybody, right? Paul with your defense pairing obviously you know you have Gus at the top and whether it’s Eklad or Seth the second pairing since ECA’s been out just being able to have the comfort of the Mika Kulakov pairing how much has that helped and what have you liked from that that duo over the last couple years that’s the the advantage found in adversity and it goes back for us a couple of years so that we had Montour and Eblad out of surgeries last year um to start the season and we had to find different pairs And it wasn’t for a game or two. It was long stretches of time where we had different pairings. So Kulikov and Mika have have been very good together. It’s a legitimate pair um on its own. It’s not a default pair for us. Both of them play a play a hard game like Meeks gets across the ice and and he’s a hitter and so is Kulie and they understand each other’s game. So, we’re fortunate with that with Bolinskus and Smith have played together quite a bit this year. They played together in the playoffs. So, there’s nothing new for our back end with a player like Aaron out. Paul, uh, MNER just had a baby. Yeah. Uh, I believe Eman Larson was saying he had a baby right before the playoffs last year. Been around a long time. We’re there’s a lot of babies happening. I think it has to do like the the teams are of similar age. We got a a gaggle. We got a whole We got our own daycare going on at the rink. It’s It’s awesome. Yeah. What is What What sort of like impact does it have on guys? Like Oel was saying it kind of helped him a little bit. Do you expect like Marty have a little extra energy even though he might be giving up some sleep? It’s not on the prescat board. Hey, you got to watch the guy just watch the the new dads. Um but we’ve had a whole bunch this year and there’s certainly a lightness when they come to the rink. That perspective does change for sure, especially all of us who’ve been through it. It changes everything in such a positive way. Um I remember we had Darren Langden had triplets one year and uh he had already had a I think he had about an 18month at hole. So he’d come in and get and sleep. He could he started coming to the rink earlier and he’d sleep in the lounge. The guys keep all the lights off and everybody there’s no music in the morning because that was the only time Ler had got a chance to sleep. So they’re all going through it at the same time. It’s a wonderful It’s also great with these these great players. I think you all hope they stay in your community when they’re done. They’re their kids a part of it. And for non-traditional markets, it’s where it’s in a big way where the hockey program grows because hockey players have kids that play hockey and they’re usually pretty good. They’ve got a good stock and that’s how those hockey programs take off. So wonderful thing. Then Anna, please. Paul, you guys have played a lot of hockey the last couple years. Um, you’re trying at the end of the regular season just to get some healthy bodies back to be able to beat Tampa in five, especially considering the quality of the opposition. How big do you think or hope that that might be because you don’t want to go seven every round? Obviously, I felt the end of our season was egregious. Um, it was go to the third week in March on. We played 10 of 14 on the road. We had five sets of backto-backs and we finished with nine games in 15 days. So, we had about four or five guys that were kind of wobbly with day-to-day stuff that we started pulling guys out of the lineup and it wasn’t and everybody thought, well, I wasn’t resting them. I was other than Sam Reinhardt because he was on place to play 86 games this year with the four four nations plus the 82. So, we pulled him out of a couple of backto backs. I feel uh I thought I saw it a little bit in game two and then we came out of it. So now though for our team I think this is our sixth game in 19 days where we had come out of nine games in 15 days. So I I don’t feel that’s an issue for this group at all anymore. And we don’t really we play in so many tight games and that’s almost the the history from January 1st on really tight games and that’s the style of game that we play. You don’t have to you don’t have to feel good to play well or win. You don’t need your hands and you don’t have to feel good. Paul Anthony Stard has been a rock for this Toronto team pretty much the entire season getting the biggest opportunity of his career right now. What did you learn about him as a player from your time with him? The personality is the first part. I’ll qualify this. I don’t know anything about goalending. Like nothing. I’m not I’m serious. Especially the why you would play goal. But for for us it was a game I think at home against the Islanders last year and we gave up 41 shots. So clearly we were in Stanley Cup form and he was fantastic and he looked different than he did at the start of the year. He just so he looked then the way he looks now. His game for us from January on of last year is exactly the guy that has played for the Leafs. And he’s one of the wonderful personalities in the game that you cheer for. Clearly, we we hope we can find a way to get a few by him, but good for him because he did it right by his teammates. He was a great pair with Sergey. Great personality. Really team first guy. So, you love seeing those guys have success. Thank you. Thank you. Okay.

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice speaks to the media before Game 1 against the host Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday, May 5, 2025.

The Panthers won the best-of-7 first-round series against the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 for the second straight postseason.

Florida will play the Toronto Maple Leafs in Eastern Conference semifinals Monday at 8 (ESPN).

How Brad Marchand Joined the Florida Panthers: https://floridahockeynow.com/brad-marchand-joins-florida-panthers-how-it-happened-nhl-trade-bruins/

2024 Stanley Cup Champions Honored at the White House: https://floridahockeynow.com/stanley-cup-champion-florida-panthers-honored-at-white-house/

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

The Florida Panthers Get Their Rings. They’re Spectacular: https://floridahockeynow.com/florida-panthers-get-stanley-cup-championship-rings-theyre-spectacular/

The Florida Panthers Are Stanley Cup Champions: https://floridahockeynow.com/can-you-believe-it-florida-panthers-are-stanley-cup-champs/

Wednesday, Florida took a 4-3 lead on a Sam Bennett goal late in the second.

Carter Verhaeghe, Anton Lundell, Sasha Barkov, Eetu Luostarinen, and Sam Reinhart also scored for the Panthers. Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves.

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Video Courtesy Florida Panthers / Panthers Vision