Ahead of Saturday’s game against the Leafs, Panthers head coach Paul Maurice discussed his experience working with potential Leafs GM candidate Sonny Mehta, the Panthers and Leafs’ fall to the bottom of the standings, and the challenges and perks of the Toronto market.
What has it been like working with assistant GM Sonny Mehta?
Maurice: Great. My experience in Florida with all of Bill Zito’s group has been fantastic. We have two tiers of players that all of them have brought in.
Sonny is fantastic with analytics and his ability to articulate it to coaches. It’s that easy conversation. We can ask questions, and we get answers and explanations back. Brett Peterson and Gregory Campbell are part of that group.
They brought in guys who maybe weren’t flourishing where they were, and they’ve become stars or part of our core. Oliver Ekman-Larsson would be a great example. Coming out of Vancouver, he was injured. His career wasn’t where he wanted it to be. He came in.
We’ve been able to find those guys. AJ Greer. Ryan Lomberg. Kevin Stenlund. Nate Schmidt. Sometimes it is just finding the right mix of guys, but they’ve hit that number, right? Sonny is a big part of that.
Have you played poker with Sonny?
Maurice: Never. Stay in your lane, man. I stay in my lane.
You’ve coached in a lot of different markets. People say the Toronto market is really hard for players and coaches. What has your experience been in the markets as a former coach in Toronto? Is Toronto that much harder, or is it a fiction?
Maurice: Hmmm. It’s a really good question. There are far more challenges in either a large market or a Canadian market. There just are. You have to be aware of how that gets into your room.
I’ll give you an example. In my short time here, I would never change the lines in practice, especially if we had two or three days off. If I changed the lines, I had 30 cameras in that guy’s stall, for the guy who went from the second to third line. It might just be that you wanted to switch something, but that becomes a story you build. So I always did it in the game. If I did it in-game, it was, “Oh, I just wanted to give the other guy a chance,” and you try to keep the cameras out.
It is a thing, but it can also be a wonderful thing. It has been a really good team here. I mean, they’ve had a tough year, but we were down 2-0 to them (in the playoffs), and we ended up having a pretty good finish last year. Nothing is permanent in this league. You can win a Stanley Cup and then miss the playoffs by a hundred miles. We are going to prove that this year, and then we are going to try to win next year. Nothing is permanent.
Sometimes, in these markets, it is like a drive-by shooting every day. Sorry to offend someone if there was one somewhere. You’ve got to get used to that. I’ve always really marveled at Mats Sundin and how he handled it. I learned from that guy. My two years here were a really good experience, just from watching people around me who were good at it. He was always up front — always front and center. I think he would tell the truth, but he was smart enough to know that there don’t always have to be a lot of details with that truth. “We weren’t very good tonight, but we’ll try to be better the next night.” He was really honest, but he had a presence about him.
It is not an easy thing to do, but it can be a great thing, right? If you are going to hit a homerun, this is a good place to hit a homerun. There is good and bad in every market. Winning usually changes all of it.
Does some of the rookie content entering the lineups of both teams add some excitement to this game?
Maurice: Absolutely, it does. You come to the rink excited to see these young guys play, and they’re playing hard. You’re coaching, trying to direct them, and you’re pulling for them. You want them to have a great experience. We’ve both had pretty tough years in Toronto and Florida. We need a reason to be excited about a game when we are closing out our season.
AJ Greer said the mental challenge began when Aleksander Barkov went down in training camp. When did you think you didn’t have the magic this year?
Maurice: Well, he is right. Our training camp has been very intense, and they like it. When he went down, those next two days, in truth, were like a funeral. It was very quiet on the ice.
But we were a point out of the playoffs on January 1st. We had Matthew coming back in three or four days. I was really impressed; we went 9-4-2 in December. We were right there. We had lots of confidence with that. And then Seth Jones went down in the outdoor game. That was almost the tipping point for us.
We had run at five or six guys out per night on average. That put us into seven. I think, when Toronto came in, we had eight out, and they beat us. There is a threshold of numbers. I think you can win with five out. Anything over that is tough.
We got into a stretch of nine games in 15 days leading into the break, and in seven of those games, we lost a guy each game in the game. We were losing by a goal or were tied going into the third when Anton Lundell went down. And that is when the separation happened in terms of points.
When we came out of the break, we went 6-9, and we started losing guys again. You always felt like it was, “Uncle! We’ve had our fill. We’re going to get guys back.” But then it just kept going and kept going. We had two guys break bones on consecutive nights.
Dmitry Kulikov breaks his nose, and I sit him until he can breathe. He comes back and breaks his finger. Jonesy broke his foot and played on it. They don’t want to come out and leave their brothers, but it has been an incredible run.
Your team won back-to-back Cups and now, forcibly, have to give up the grip on it for at least 12 months. Who would you pick to win it now, and why?
Maurice: I’m not doing that, but to me, there are five clear teams. Any one of them can win. We never had home-ice advantage last year in any of our four rounds. My five probably aren’t winning. But in terms of style of play and consistency of that style of play over the course of the year…
The idea that you have to “time it” for the playoffs… We’ve been horrible in March each of the last two years because we are just waiting for the playoffs to start. That is how I’ve felt. But in terms of day one to 82 consistency, I would value it more. Who has been good the longest? They know their game.
Look at it this year. We played four straight months of playoff hockey without losing a defenseman. We can’t keep a guy in practice this year. That part you don’t control.
The answer is that nobody knows who is winning the thing. Nobody.
Who are the five teams?
Maurice: Not a chance, because that sixth team is kicking our butt all year next year. Not a chance.
