After Saturday’s practice, Panthers head coach Paul Maurice discussed his team holding Auston Matthews goal-less through three games, the swing of avoiding a 3-0 series hole, his fourth line, and his son’s aspirations as a hockey broadcaster.
Auston Matthews hasn’t scored yet in the series. What have you liked about how your team has approached him to keep a pretty darn good scorer from getting on the board?
Maurice: I just feel the same way I feel about Barkov, or let’s say Reinhart instead. Whether that guy scores or not, sometimes, it is either a great save, a block, or a deflection. The game can be almost identical to the nights when they are scoring. Sometimes, it goes in for them.
I would say that is different for a guy on the fourth line. You could say, “Sometimes, it goes in for them.” Well, that is happenstance. The guys who score in the 50s or 60s are getting the looks and the same shots. [Reinhart] has had a bunch he’s missed.
For Auston Matthews, I feel the same way. When I watch the video, he has the puck a bunch. He has the puck on his stick. I am not feeling good about it behind the bench. It doesn’t go, and I feel a lot better about it.
It is just the opposite emotions for Reinhart. He cracked the bar last night on the power play. They are playing the same game. It is inevitable for both players. They are both going to score.
Did it help in Game 3 that so many players who are on the team now were on the team last year when you were down 2-1 in the series to the Rangers?
Maurice: It should, but every playoff series is different. It has a different feel. I am not a big believer in momentum, or we would’ve lost the last game 60-0 based on the first minute. Four or five minutes in, it looked like we might lose it 30-0. I am not a big believer in that.
In that game, I do feel that the pressure is on our team. At 3-0, you feel different today. We are having a whole different set of conversations just based on one win or one loss. Now, I feel like it goes back to going flat on both teams. I don’t think there is a pressure advantage for either team in Game 4.
The Leafs have a bunch of guys who have been through it, and you have so many players who have been through it. How do you stay calm in those moments when it is overtime and you know someone has a chance to be up or down 3-0?
Maurice: Probably exhaustion and fatigue. I was going to say, “If I went for a 10-mile run,” but who is kidding whom? If I take the stairs down, I’ll look pretty calm.
I feel a great appreciation for the separation between coaches and players. I am not a player. I don’t have a history of playing. But they train for it. It is kind of what they do every single day at this level. That goes for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Florida Panthers. They would have trained their [whole] lives.
They can be focused on just where they were at because if they didn’t have that ability in that moment, they wouldn’t have had that ability when they were 14 or 15 to not watch TV and go work out or work on their shot. They are a little different, these guys. They all have the ability to focus on something repetitive, especially at a young age. They can repetitively do something over and over again and enjoy it.
By the time we get them — when they have trained, and they are 30 years old — they are just playing. The moment, the crowd, and the noise are not part of what they process.
When you swapped in an entire fourth line as you did, what was it about their style of play that you felt the team needed specifically in Game 3?
Maurice: It started in the last month of the season. Tomas (Nosek) had come out when (Nico) Sturm came in. AJ (Greer) had played all of the games, and [Jonah Gadjovich] was in and out of the lineup. Sturm got injured, and Tomas went back in. We had about a 10-game block when they were fantastic. On some nights, they were our best line. They really looked like they had a chemistry.
We added players at the deadline. For each one of the players I was using on the fourth line, I really liked what they could do in a certain situation. It didn’t necessarily translate to a line chemistry.
I felt like I wasn’t just bringing one of them in. If one was coming in, they were all coming in. For them, sitting on the bench, it is not the one; it is the three of them together. They’ve had chemistry and success together. They are all fired up. They would share that nervousness I am sure they had before the game.
What is your process with those players who sit out for stretches to keep them motivated?
Maurice: It can be based on the personality type. I have taken guys out of the lineup who were not very happy before. Not here, but back in the day, there used to be a mindset that your fourth line was usually older. Back then, you had revocable waivers, and if you lost two in a row, someone went on waivers. They’d get claimed, and you’d go, “Just kidding.” The idea was that you never make it easy on a coach to take you out of the lineup.
I have had more than one exceptionally heated conversation after pulling a guy out. That game has changed. I guess you don’t try to start your relationship with a player in the playoffs, where you have to take a guy out.
I have had some tough ones. Taking Nick Cousins out of the lineup last year was very, very difficult for me. He had played so hard and battled so hard. We just needed a different structure. He handled that so well — much different than how it would’ve been handled 30 years ago.
You just try to have enough of a relationship with them in the end. I deliver the hard news first. “You’re out tonight.” In the playoffs, I am not going through the long list of reasons you are out. That would be the difference. In the regular season, I would tell a guy, “Look, in these last three games, we need more here,” or, “Hey, I just need a different look on my fourth line.”
I don’t take them through it. There is no failure in the past. We have already gone through the video. I just say, “Hey, you’re coming out tonight.” That’s it.
You’ve mentioned that it doesn’t faze Sergei Bobrovsky when he plays an off game or what the outside perception is of his play. When his game slips a little bit, what have you seen from him when he finds it again? What does he do to get it back?
Maurice: I don’t think he loses it. I just think it is an off-night. I don’t think he has to go anywhere.
When you are in your first three or four years in this league and you have a tough one, you are wondering if that is a change in direction. “Oh no, it is going downhill for me,” or, “I am hot now.”
He is far beyond viewing the game as an individual night. He is so process-driven that it is really all he focuses on. He and Rob Tallas have a fantastic relationship in that they are two very bright men, so they can talk to each other about that, and they’ve built that idea.
There is so much experience, and he is such a veteran pro, that he can do it in the game. We have an unusual team at times this year where we would go long stretches without giving a whole heck of a lot up. It was almost tougher for him this year. Every NHL team has good players, so you get those flurries, or a great player is on a breakaway. There is a mental toughness that he has that he can continue to access to sit through games, not get much, and then get a heater.
He has had a good year to prep him for the playoffs this year.
There was a clip that went viral of Roberto Luongo jumping three-and-a-half feet out of his chair when Brad Marchand scored the game-winning goal. If you were told that would be the reaction from Luongo to a Marchand goal…
Maurice: Roberto is a very, very bright man. He doesn’t say a whole lot, but you listen every time he speaks. He has a great understanding of how our room works.
I think the toughest job in hockey is the guys who are in management and have to sit up top in a building. It is like the goalie coach. You are making every save. For Roberto, it is worse. You have to watch every game and make every save. He has the double tension.
There is a passion there. It is true of every team. We are all connected together, and they share that.
In hockey, there are so many families that have multiple generations in the game. You are the same with your son Jake. Have you ever talked to Matthew Tkachuk about what it is like to wear the name? He is a star in his own right, but it had to be difficult for him at one point in his life to have that expectation.
Maurice: I don’t know. Part of it is that I never played, and neither did my kid. The first answer is that there are a lot of different ways to love this game. You don’t have to be a player.
It is probably more difficult for a young man to follow his father when he was a star. I think that has a whole set of challenges, and you have to be elite at your game. I don’t think you get a benefit from it early on.
In Matthew’s case, his dad and mom did a wonderful job of making them a part of the NHL life but never grasping on to the potentially negative things about having a star father or being around a high-profile life. They are just salt-of-the-earth people, specifically in how he treats the people I see him interact with — guys like me, the people who work on our planes, the bus driver, the ticket people. He is just wonderfully giving.
There are a lot of different ways to love the game. My son Jake might love the game more than I do and has since he was 15 or 16. Hopefully, you all love the game, too, and you haven’t come to hate us for our dumbass answers when you ask a completely intelligent question and we scoffed or scowled.
There are a lot of different ways to love the game.
What did it mean to you when Jake told you that he wants to be part of the game as your career path?
Maurice: “Get a good suitcase,” was the first piece of advice. You are going to go through more than one if you are lucky.
For me, I look at it completely differently. What a wonderful bridge to have a connection to your son. They are up 2-1 in their series, and they had an incredible run in their first round. I am listening to him. There are overtime games, and they are winning. You get like a 15-minute block after the game where he is wired, as I would be after a game. I get to talk to my kid about that and know what he is talking about.
He has aspirations to be in the NHL, and I have aspirations that he lives a good and happy life. My mom and dad are in their mid-80s, and they watch every game. I am hoping to be in the exact same situation in about 30 years, listening to every game, if I am lucky.
