Paul Maurice, Morning Skate Game 6: Florida Panthers a Win Away from the Stanley Cup

Paul Maurice, Morning Skate Game 6: Florida Panthers a Win Away from the Stanley Cup

like this you’ve used the term desperation verse desire before is that the case again here in game six with these two teams yeah the closer you get to the end of a series i think that’s the one of the two teams is going to be in that situation so using that energy but also controlling that energy is the critical part front right coach at the first 10 minutes of uh the skate today and most of them in the playoffs everybody’s doing these big laps and you do these tiny little laps around the center circle staring at guys and i’m wondering what you’re thinking and if you’re thinking anything different on the day when the cup’s in the building well i can’t skate on the outside you get hurt you get run over that’s you got to know your lane man i’m in i’m in the senior citizen lane in the middle of that ice um no i i do a bit of a uh checklist when i get out there i kind of look at each guy and figure out do i need to get to him today and if i do what would i say uh for the most part it’s almost always no there’s two or three guys but over the course of the regular season i got to talk to him i got to talk to him um and that’s that would be like the extent of of my mental process there’s not much else going on don’t get the most difficult thing to do for me on the ice is if i’m not running drill figure out where to stand so you don’t get hit with pucks that’s a critical thing i worry about other than that when you know that when you’re running the drill you know where you’re not going to get hit front right paul i’m going to preface this by saying it’s probably a dumb question but hear me out uh usually when a team is at home for six and wants to avoid going back on the road for seven they’ll admit later that there’s this other layer of pressure here at six because you want to take care of business tonight and of course you want to win but because you’ve been so good on the road i actually wonder if it’s a little freeing mentally for you guys knowing that whether it’s tonight or the next game that you feel you’re up to it regardless i don’t there’s no dread you know we don’t say well we have to win tonight because we can’t win the next one um we’ve played you know exceptionally well at times in game sixes and then at other times you know the other teams played exceptionally well i don’t i don’t we haven’t had too many games this year in the playoffs where i thought boy we had a really off night we we you know you can look at the game fairly objectively the next day and say yeah you know what they were really good and and we could be better so there’s a comfort level it’s it’s not about not wanting game seven it’s just you have a chance to win right that’s all and that’s what you’re trying to capitalize on left side front row how important has it been this postseason for your team to have the same general mood attitude win lose whatever it like even today there’s a maybe a few more smiles but like it just it seems like you’re playing detroit on a tuesday really important and born by experience uh we’ve just had some enormous wins here in the last three years and really difficult heartbreaking losses at the same time and the and and you figure out a way to round the edges off those that that you don’t get too excited and and those are all cliche things but a very high pressure environment for every team and for two teams it’s a two-monthlong process uh and it and it takes uh i think some while to learn how to manage that and you have to i don’t think it can be managed particularly well at the start you got to learn how to do it you got to suffer that defeat and you’ve got to come off that win that that is so exciting for you except there’s another game two days from now so there’s no point in getting all that excited you know handling that i think living through it helps we’ll take three more questions front right paula gatric hasn’t been out there past couple days we know he’s one of the guys who’s always out there good to go for a night or he’s good to go left side third row paul what does it feel like waking up in the morning knowing that you could win the stanley cup i think you asked me that four times last year it feels just fine thank you last question back right hi paul uh you touched on it a little with uh with george but about the mindset uh a few different players have been saying that they’re focused and loose how do you define this kind of mindset and who are some of the the individuals that help have that mindset every day well that mindset i mean i guess there’s a tone set by your veteran players especially for the new players that come in and see it for the first time but it’s collective um if you if you drive into the rink today and you got a pretty good idea of how you’re going to play what what your drivers are so every player has a different skill set and they all have a different catalyst to be great so they can and this is would be something that we would talk about over the course of the year so you’re driving to the rink and whatever it is i got to get on the body in the first three minutes i got there’s some things i got to do to get into the game but the rest of it you know pretty pretty good idea what the guy’s going to do with the puck tonight you have a pretty good idea of what’s going to happen next which is really important so then you can relax about the big uh the big picture or or even just relax about the team game and just say “look this is this is what makes me good this is what i got to do.” thank you for your time coach

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice meets the media in Fort Lauderdale after their morning skate before Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, at the IcePlex.

The Panthers hold a 3-2 series lead and are a win away from repeating as Stanley Cup champions.

Game 6 of the Cup Final is Tuesday in Sunrise at 8 (TNT).

The Panthers Are Back in the Cup Final: https://floridahockeynow.com/florida-panthers-5-carolina-hurricanes-3-game-5-ecf-may-28-2025-back-to-stanley-cup-final/

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/

Saturday, the Panthers led 2-0 in the first off goals from Brad Marchand and Sam Bennett.

Marchand got his second in the third, with Sam Reinhart and Eetu Luostarinen closing the scoring for Florida.

Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves.

Florida is 10-3 on the road this postseason and 2-1 in Edmonton — so far.

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Video Courtesy Florida Panthers / Panther Vision