Panthers head coach Paul Maurice discussed his team’s 3-1 win over the Maple Leafs, which ended their five-game losing slide and closed out the season series vs. Toronto at 3-1-0 in favour of Florida.
On his team’s performance:
We needed to win a game. We played pretty well in this stretch and didn’t have much go our way. Through two periods, it looked like those games. We just weren’t finishing much around the net on some of the chances.
I thought we played a pretty smart game. We were fairly true to the identity. It wasn’t a particularly heavy game, but I thought we did what we needed to do to win.
On his team’s response to Toronto’s 1-1 tying goal:
You kind of listen to your bench a little bit. How do they respond? There was a lot of chirping and talking. They liked their game. They said all of the right things and kept talking. It didn’t get quiet. That was the tell that we were going to be all right.
On limiting the Leafs to just 18 shots on goal:
There was a point in the season when I was really complaining about our rush defense. We were on the road out west somewhere. We were really struggling.
We have been good in that part of our game. We haven’t given much up off the rush. They scored a goal against us, but I don’t even consider it a rush. It was a stretch play. We were much better at handling that tonight.
On whether he is scoreboard watching in anticipation of the different playoff scenarios in the division:
We are going to give ourselves a chance to accomplish everything we can short of running guys into the ground. Priority one has to be our health for the opening game. Who you play does not matter.
I don’t say that out of arrogance, as if we don’t care who we play because that’s how good we are. If you aren’t healthy, you can win a game, but you aren’t winning. This is true of every team in the NHL. When you get down to the top eight in the conference, you need a certain threshold of health. That has to be priority one.
On his team’s ability to focus on defense but still generate so many shot attempts offensively:
The idea is that you get the biggest collection of talent you possibly can and then get them to play hard defensively. The hands are all there. The offensive part of our game… Credit to the players. They are willing to sacrifice it a little bit.
There is a way to generate a little bit more if you have to, but it is something you almost have to do all year. We do it the other way. If we can, we try to score playoff goals and be grinders. Every once in a while, someone will make a mistake, and you will get something off the rush, but you wait. You let that happen instead of searching for it.
I said we wanted to be in tight games. I think we have gone through about three months of them now. I am almost at my fill, but those are the games we are going to be in come playoff time.
On the Eetu Luostarinen — Anton Lundell — Brad Marchand line:
I like it. I like it almost from a personality point of view. Brad is so wired into the game and in a bit of a lather. I think it is good for those younger players to play with that kind of energy. He talks all the time on the bench about the game. He plays with such passion.
Structurally, they were really good tonight. I still don’t think they are getting any bounces around the net. In the small sample size they’ve had, they have generated offense for us, but we know that eventually those will go (in). The breakaway for Brad, or some of the plays around the net, will go for him.
On whether Marchand brings a similar dynamic to the Luostarinen — Lundell line as Vladimir Tarasenko did last season:
Different personality, for sure, but Vladdy would sit on the bench and talk hockey non-stop the entire game, all through practice. The entire time, he was engaging those guys about where they are going to be, how to play the game, and different reads on different plays. Brad is engaging those two young men in the same way.
It looks like there is something there with the Lundell-Marchand penalty-killing pair. Brad is an elite penalty killer, and it is all his sense of the game.
When you go back to what we were trying to get done with this team — when I say we, I mean what Bill (Zito) was trying to get done — we needed penalty killers and a right-shot defenseman. When we got Brad, certainly, everyone would think about the points he’s produced, but he is an elite killer as well.
On Gustav Forsling scoring his 11th of the season off the blue line:
We ask him to sacrifice [offense] in some ways. He usually has the big job with Aaron (Ekblad) against the other team’s best. He puts all of his energy into that. It is why he hasn’t seen much power-play time here.
He shoots it a ton. He has 11 goals, so he should be out there pounding them at the top. There may come a point when you see that, but he has been a selfless player here in the three years I have had him. He has just been a wonderful man to enjoy.
