The Coaches Room is a regular feature throughout the 2023-24 season by former NHL coaches and assistants who turn their critical gaze to the game and explain it through the lens of a teacher. In this edition, Paul MacLean, former coach of the Ottawa Senators who won the Jack Adams Award voted as NHL coach of the year in 2013, and assistant with the Anaheim Ducks, Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets and Toronto Maple Leafs, looks at the matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and Florida Panthers in the Stanley Cup Final.
I think it’s a great Stanley Cup Final.
Both teams have faced a little adversity and found a way to get themselves in the Final.
That’s phenomenal, and both teams deserve a lot of credit for it. The Edmonton Oilers have gone through a little more than the Florida Panthers have, but they both found a way to get there, and it’s going to be an exciting Final.
If the Oilers can keep their power play going to keep the flies off Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, it will make the Panthers change their game a little bit. The Panthers do take a lot of penalties, and if the Oilers power play can help them take charge of the game, Edmonton is going to be in a good spot. If they can’t, it puts Florida in a good spot.
For me, the biggest part of the first game is how that very first power play for Edmonton goes. It’ll tell you a lot about how much success it will have.
Physicality is a big part of Florida’s game for sure, and that’s the part that wears opponents out, but it also takes a lot to do that, too. There’s that factor into it as well, and Edmonton hasn’t been shy about being physical in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Panthers are going to have to stand up to that part of it, but the big part of the physicality if you’re Florida is the Edmonton power play. If Florida takes penalties, the best way for Edmonton to handle that physicality of the Panthers is to have the power play click like it did in the Western Conference Final (36.4 percent), and that will slow a lot of people down. That will have a lot of people thinking about what they’re doing and that might change the Panthers’ game a little bit if they can’t stay out of the penalty box and the Oilers keep filling the net.
What’s been impressive about this run by the Panthers is their physicality, and one of the really good players for them has become Gustav Forsling. He really stepped up and played well and shut down some really good players. Forsling has really been a force, and Sergei Bobrovsky has been very good in their net.
They have a little bit of scoring by committee. Anton Lundell has really come up and played really well for them. Aleksander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett -- there are the guys that are a little more visible, but these other guys behind the scenes are quietly playing really well and real solid.
Florida’s defensive game has also been really strong around its net and in its zone. Even on the Panthers forecheck, when they get it going, they go hard and make you play in your end a lot. Their defensive structure has been very good as well, and that’s been a big part of their success -- not just the goalie, but the way they play defensively.
The Oilers are an offensive team, but they learned that in the playoffs you have to defend, and they’ve gotten better at defending.
At times it gets away from them and they get into an issue giving up some opportunities, but the last couple of games Stuart Skinner has come up and played very strong for them and given them an opportunity to win it. He won the last game for them, and that’s great confidence for him going into it.
The coaching matchup is interesting as well. The one thing about Edmonton coach Kris Knoblauch is that if you don’t know, then you don’t know what you’re missing. He has to go though it first to figure it out to find out what it’s all about.
I was there with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2003, and the first time we went through it, we didn’t know to be nervous about something, so we weren’t nervous about it. So we had that going for us.
Florida coach Paul Maurice has been around a long time and he was there last year. The one thing about the Panthers in this series is that they’ve been there, they’ve been disappointed by losing in the Final, and that’s a real big motivator for a team that’s been there the year before and they lost out. They know there’s a little extra left to go, and that’s something that could be big for the Panthers, that they’ve been there and Maurice has been there and so they know what to expect. They know how they have to elevate their play to get there. It’ll be a big part of their preparation.
Knoblauch has made the right decisions, as it turns out, and you don’t make those decisions all by yourself. It’s a great use of his coaching staff. He obviously believes in his coaching staff. His coaching staff has input. He takes everybody’s opinion and gets all the information he can, and ultimately he has to make the final decision. Right now, he’s made all the right decisions as far as players in and players out.
I was always a big believer in using your depth. Don’t be afraid to use your depth because that’s why you have it. There’s no sense in getting beat out in Game 5 because three other guys got tired and couldn’t play, or three guys got hurt because they were tired and you could have put someone else in.
I think he looks at the whole picture, evaluates his team and what the opponent is doing, and picks his team accordingly.
That’s what the coach is supposed to be doing. It’s a big responsibility, and up until this point he’s made the right decisions.
