Florida Panthers Draw on Game 7 Experience With Their Backs Against the Wall in Toronto
The Florida Panthers know what it takes to win a Game 7, and they are looking to draw on that experience to close out their second-round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
TORONTO — For the first time since Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final, the Florida Panthers have their backs against the wall.
Florida watched a chance to close the Toronto Maple Leafs at home in Game 6 slip away. Now, their chance at defending their Stanley Cup title is on the line in a winner-take-all Game 7.
Sounds familiar.
After all, that was what happened — three different times — before the Panthers closed the Edmonton Oilers out in the Cup Final with one of their most complete performances of the playoffs.
They know what it takes.
“You have to bring all of your emotion, intensity and focus on that game, and we’ve obviously done it before,” Aaron Ekblad said. “So, we have to draw on those experiences and bring what we can to the game.”
The Panthers have gone to two Game 7s in their two previous runs to the Stanley Cup Final under Paul Maurice: the first-round in 2023 against the Boston Bruins and the aforementioned Stanley Cup Final victory last year.
They were on both sides of the ledger — first being the scrappy team that barely made the playoffs in the first place clawing its way back from a 3-1 series deficit, then going from up 3-0 to tied at 3-3 in the Cup Final — and found a way to win both of them.
Both games were tight defensively, close, and it took some Herculean efforts in the clutch to win it in the end.
In 2023, it was Brandon Montour who saved Florida’s season with a minute to go before Carter Verhaeghe’s eventual overtime winner. In the Cup Final, it was Dmitry Kulikov who blocked a shot near the goal line to set up Sam Reinhart’s go-ahead goal in the second period of the Cup Final before Sergei Bobrovsky shut the door in the third period.
They know what to expect at this point.
“The more times you’ve been in a situation, the more comfortable you are going to feel,” Reinhart said. “From going through it countless times, it is comforting knowing what you are going to get out of the guy next to you, and that’s his best in a time like this.”
Maurice, himself, is 5-0 in Game 7s over the course of his 30-year run as a coach in the NHL, and it is because he does not change his philosophy heading into a Game 7.
“Would you be less jacked up because it’s a Game 6?” Maurice said. “I’m really saving my best coaching for Game 7… that doesn’t sound like a good recipe of getting to Game 7 ever, but personally, I enjoy them.”
His teams are catered to playing a style of hockey that works in the playoffs — a style of hockey that wins games with its backs against the wall — and his players trust that they can prepare for a game like this knowing they have the tools they need to win it.
“It’s freeing knowing that we’ve been in this situation and we know how to handle it,” Ekblad said. “The messages, the chemistry, and how we prepare for it is all the same. Nothing changes.”