Paul Maurice Not Satisfied With Florida Panthers Performance in Cup Final Rematch Victory
Even after a 4-3 win — without Matthew Tkachuk in the lineup — Panthers coach Paul Maurice was not satisfied with his team’s performance on Thursday night.
SUNRISE, Fla. — Even after watching his team defeat the Edmonton Oilers, 4-3, in a 2024 Stanley Cup Final rematch without star forward Matthew Tkachuk, Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice was not satisfied on Thursday night.
“The Lundell line was really good, and I thought the last eight minutes we looked the way we were were supposed to, but other than that, I didn’t really like our game tonight,” Maurice said. “We put a lot of pucks in feet, I thought we looped away from them, I thought we chose to be not as physical as I think we could have been in that game
Sure, the Panthers have won seven of their past nine games to this point, but what makes them good enough to make back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals is the standard they hold for themselves and their drive to improve.
Florida had a few chances to put their foot on Edmonton’s throat early. They had two early power plays, but got out of it with nothing after some sloppy puck movement and a goal overturned by an offside review due to a scuffed-up drop pass at the blue line.
Those mistakes came time and time again after Florida took one-goal leads via goals from Uvis Balinksis and Anton Lundell and Edmonton always capitalized on an opportunity to come back.
It was not until Nate Schmidt and Carter Verhaeghe struck in the final eight minutes of the third period to momentarily put the Panthers up by two goals that they were in the clear.
From there, they were hard on pucks, they drew penalties from Mattias Ekholm and Corey Perry in the final 3:17 of the game to break up any chance of a comeback, and then they eked out the win.
“I just want to be honest about my assessment of our game,” Maurice said. “I just thought we started to enjoy a game that we didn’t play well. We can play it. We won a game on it tonight, right? But it’s not our strength.
“We didn’t play necessarily to our strength. I didn’t mind the first period, I thought we were right, and then we got into that sloppy transition game and we didn’t excel in that game.
“It won’t be enough for a punitive skate tomorrow,” Maurice said. “But we’ve played games this year where we’ve lost and I’ve been really happy with our game. I didn’t love our game.”