Ahead of the Panthers vs. Leafs matchup, Panthers head coach Paul Maurice discussed the meaning of the game, the respective teams’ deadline additions, and the Panthers’ trip to the HHOF in Toronto.
Do you place a priority on finishing first the division? What sort of game are you expecting intensity-wise? The Leafs were saying they expect a playoff-type game.
Maurice: We wouldn’t like the intensity to change necessarily based on what is on the line. We would like to play as hard as we possibly can every night.
I am trying to make sure I tell you the truth. You want to finish first because you can, but it doesn’t necessarily gain you an easier route. We would not have picked Boston two years ago in the first round in a million years. It is probably why we got to where we got to last year.
We will gameplan what happens after that. You will find that the two teams that finish in the wildcard will have been playing playoff hockey for three months. The idea that the standings would tell you how hard that first series would be is foolish.
We are not going to play harder tonight because it could be for first place. We should be playing as hard as we can every night. That is the way we are rolling here.
What is the difference between being the defending Cup champs and the team that is trying to win it?
Maurice: Different energy sources. When you are striving for it, there is an edge to you — that desire, that drive to get to that place. That is a different energy source. I think you are angrier.
When you get to it, and I am going to contradict myself now, you just want to hang onto that. You get to experience a feeling that you probably cannot explain to someone. It becomes something that you cherish. I found that this year, when we lost a game, it was worse. It just drives you nuts.
It’s different energy sources. I do feel that last year, we got a lot of hard games from teams, but that was more of a perception of how we played. You knew it was going to be physical and rough.
Just judging from our pre-scouts, when we watch the games two or three prior to us, they don’t look like the game they played against us. It is high-end energy, which has been good because we have had a lot of tight games that didn’t go our way earlier in the year that are starting to go our way a little bit more now. Our last two losses were one-goal losses. We are prepared for their best, which is how we need to stay sharp as a team.
What can Brandon Carlo and Scott Laughton bring to this Leafs team?
Maurice: Two veteran players. When you look league-wide, everybody in the top three in each division pretty much did the same thing — bring in some guys who have played playoff hockey or play a playoff style of hockey. It is what we did. It is what everybody did.
Those two guys are good at it. We have seen a lot of Carlo over the years. Two great, great series. He played very well in them. They were heavy and hard.
It makes sense. The East has kind of transitioned to that. You are seeing more and more of that in the East. It is a little bit of a different style in the West. It’ll be good for them.
What does it mean to the team that Panthers management brought in impact players like Brad Marchand and Seth Jones, and a faceoff specialist in Nico Sturm? What does it say?
Maurice: The first two were clearly needs-based for what we needed, but if you go back to the summer when I was hired, it was a team that had 122 points but an unusual style. They needed a different style of player.
I was interviewing Sylvain Lefebvre, and Bill (Zito) called. I had been working there a couple of weeks. He said, “I think I can get Matthew Tkachuk, but it is going to be a heavy price.” I got off the phone and said to Sylvain, “He is not getting Matthew Tkachuk!” Now, I stopped second-guessing any of the things.
But he thinks about these things in a long-term way. He is very good at identifying our team needs. We feel our penalty kill was possibly the most important part of us winning last year. When we hit the playoffs, at the time, Tampa was maybe in the mid-30s. They just had an elite power play. The Rangers had an elite power play, and clearly, Edmonton had been at historic highs over that year. It was the key driver for us.
We had some success, and you are going to lose players because of it. You can’t necessarily fill that void right at the start of the year, but I think it was on his radar right from the beginning.
What will you remember most about your trip to the Hockey Hall of Fame to add the Panthers’ Cup ring to the museum?
Maurice: That is a cool place. I don’t think I’d been there since my kids were really young. I think I was in Toronto working here the last time I had been there.
You can spend days. If you are old enough, it is a great trip down memory lane of all the names you heard when you were five, six, and seven. That is pretty cool, and then to add a little bit of a display [of our team] for a year, anyway… You see the picture of all of the players, which is wonderful.
It was really cool to see all the Stanley Cup rings. It is my understanding that Brian Burke started that kind of tradition in ’07 of everybody putting a ring in. There is one from the late 1800s that is just a band. It is so cool. You look at Vegas’ — ours wasn’t in there yet — and the difference of a couple hundred years…
It is pretty cool, and that is the permanent part of it, which is that you get to do something like that. It is an incredible place. If you grew up in the game, you can walk through there and just see so many great names. Moose Dupont — is there a better nickname? I don’t know. Maybe not. But you remember hearing that.
That is what the Hall of Fame is. It is a magical trip.
As someone who has coached in the league for a long time, what is your perspective on Alex Ovechkin’s goal chase? Everyone knows his shot is coming. Teams are prepared for it. What makes him great?
Maurice: Well, that everybody knows his shot is coming, right? He has been the center of everybody’s penalty kill video for 20 years — since he has been in the league — and he scores. You just don’t seem to be able to stop him.
I do think the rule changes in 2006 gave the highly-skilled players the ability to show. From ’95, when I first came in, to about 2004 before the game changed, it was grind, clutch, and grab. I know that because we did it better than anybody.
Credit to the league. It allowed some of these very special players to show a really high level of skill. You see it also with all of these young players coming in and being dynamic at 18, 19, and 20. I just don’t think they’d have had that chance. Transfer that back to the clutch and grab days, you would just send somebody over to Ovi to grab his stick and hang onto it for 30 seconds before anybody caught on. [The change] was great for the game.
Chasing Gretzky — what an incredible story, that is. Every single team and coach for the last 20 years has had a plan that hasn’t worked. At some point, you go, “There is no plan.” Just try to get him to move the puck to someone else, I guess.
