Ahead of the final Maple Leafs vs. Panthers game of the regular season, Panthers head coach Paul Maurice discussed his expectations for the game, the status of his injured players, and his experience coaching now-Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz in Florida.
With the division race coming down to the wire, what kind of game are you expecting against the Leafs tonight?
Maurice: Usually, when you fire up these two teams, they just kind of square off a little bit. It is my experience that when you go into these games, you’re thinking it should be a heater tonight that will be intensely played. But primary for both teams is that they are trying to get their game right, feel good, and get ready.
We played Tampa about a month ago. When we played Tampa right before Christmas, it was on. It was quite the affair. Coming to the rink, I thought, “This will be something else tonight.” It was a church game. Nobody was chirping. They were just getting up and down. Both teams actually played the game respectfully.
I think our game is starting to round to where we need to get it. It is starting to become more physical. That might be something that gets the game going tonight, but it won’t be the context of the game. It will be two teams making sure the game is starting to round the way they want it, I think. We’ll see.
It is pretty tough for someone to take Sergei Bobrovsky’s #1 role in Florida, but did you see signs of the capability with Anthony Stolarz last season?
Maurice: Coming out of January, his entire game changed. To be clear, I don’t know anything about goaltending — like, nothing — so I can only tell you what it looked like from the bench and the middle of the ice in practice. I just thought he got to a structure in his game.
We played against the Islanders at home in a back-to-back in January. He stopped 41. We should’ve gotten beat by 10 that night. That, to me, was when he took off.
(Panthers’ goalie coach) Rob Tallas is brilliant with these guys. We had guys like Alex Lyon come in and carry for our team for a while. Stoly was really important for us in that push last year. [Tallas] said right from the beginning of the year that this guy is a goalie, but he just has had some injuries, and he has been on some teams where it is tough to get that confidence to get to that role and feeling good. Robby Tallas never wavered from his belief in Stoly.
Stolarz has said that he didn’t want to be looked at as one of those “weirdo” goalies. He wants to be one of the guys. What did you notice about his interactions?
Maurice: That is interesting because that is the way you would describe him — not the weirdo part, but the “one of the boys” part. I know that Sergei loved him as a partner. He told me that directly. We loved him here in the room.
He is one of those guys who when he got the opportunity, he got a payday a little bit. He had earned it. Everyone was happy for him. We would’ve loved to have kept him, but it is in that “Ryan Lomberg” mix.
We loved the guy. He was good for us. “Good for you and your family, and I hope it works out great for you.”
What is the situation in terms of the bodies that are ready to go?
Maurice: Two of the three I sat out came off of injury concerns we had. They’re guys who want to play games, so they came out, and I didn’t need to give them another day. Nothing has really changed on anybody else.
I don’t think Bennett is going back in. We are going to take the time for the rest of the (regular) season with Sam Bennett.
Kulikov is rounding toward the end of this weekend, but I am not sure if I am playing him back-to-back.
Matthew (Tkachuk) skated this morning. There is nothing new there. He is trending.
[Forsling] is good and feels good this morning. He will go back in.
[Barkov] is in.
[Sturm] cleared today, but I wanted him on the ice with a big group of guys to get through it with a good, hard work out. He will be available for the next game.
Is the Bennett injury something that just happened, or is it something he has been playing through?
Maurice: Both. It was over the course of the road trips. We can manage it, but he can’t play the game at his best. He could play, but we have to get him right as close to 100%. We think we might be able to do that, but we have to do it off-ice.
Is there any concern that Bennett would miss Game 1 of the playoffs?
Maurice: No. None. Zero.
How much of a benefit will the game off be for those who are returning to your lineup tonight?
Maurice: We are hoping it is huge. We are at nine games in 15 days this month with three sets of back-to-backs, but that is coming off of 10 in 14 on the road. We have been in one.
Sam Reinhart was going into playing 86 games this year, and he has played more games than anyone in the NHL in the last two. Pulling the guy on back-to-backs seemed to make some sense so he could come back in.
We think one-off in this block of games is all they needed to get right. For two of them, we had to get something fixed, and if it wasn’t fixed, they weren’t going back in tonight. And I wouldn’t put them in at 95%. They’re good. They’re right and ready.
Carter Verhaeghe hasn’t scored in 13 games. What is the level of concern with his game?
Maurice: We are working on it. I don’t know if concern is the right word.
He has a certain style. He scores in certain environments in the game. We haven’t, as a team, been in the environment.
Our scoring is down across the board with our team; not a major concern. He scored some goals and went on a bit of a run there. Okay, his game is back. And then he went five or six where he was getting chances, and he couldn’t put them in the net. It was kind of like, “We don’t need to talk about scoring. The chances are there.”
All of the lines started to move. We started to get injured, and people were moving in and out.
I am not worried about the scoring with Carter. What we are trying to get back to is a certain style of game, and it is more of a playoff game for him. That is where he excels: in the competition of close-quarter combat. You don’t find that game as much right now.
Statement on the passing of Greg Millen
Maurice: Our condolences to the Millen family for the passing of Greg. Over 30 years, we crossed paths a bunch of times. Greg is a guy we got to know, and for whatever reason, he ended up doing a lot of our games. He got to know the coaches. They ended up at the elbow room one night about 10 or 12 years ago.
Shocking today. We are going to miss him. He is a great personality, and a great friend to our coaching staff. We felt we had a great relationship with him. We are really sad for the family today.
