Game 7 is ‘completely unique animal,’ Panthers coach Maurice says

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Paul Maurice has coached in four previous Game 7s and won them all.

The stakes have never been this high for the Florida Panthers coach, though.

Maurice and the Panthers can lift the Stanley Cup for the first time with a victory against the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final at Amerant Bank Arena on Monday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, SN, TVAS, CBC).

After letting a 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 series slip away, however, Maurice and the Panthers are also on the verge of joining the 1942 Detroit Red Wings (against the Toronto Maple Leafs) as the second team to lose a Cup Final after winning the first three games.

“I think (Game) 7s are just a completely unique animal,” Maurice said after the Panthers held an optional morning skate. “I don’t think it relates in terms of pressure to anything because there is no tomorrow. So, it’s a completely different feel. I think we’ve been immersed in the weight of it for a week. We’ve been through two or three games, so there’s not a new experience for us in this other than it’s also a Game 7.”

Florida has been focused all season on earning redemption after losing to the Vegas Golden Knights in the Cup Final last season. This will be its last chance to do that.

After winning the first three games against the Oilers by combined 11-4 score, the Panthers haven’t come close to getting the clinching fourth win, never leading in the past three games and losing by a combined 18-5 score, including 5-1 in Game 6 at Edmonton on Friday.

Still, there were some things Maurice liked about the way the Florida played in those losses. So, though there were some adjustments made through video work and in practice Sunday, in the moments before opening face-off, Maurice will be looking more to build off the structure that’s been implemented and honed during his two seasons as its coach.

“The biggest part of it is built over years. It’s built over time,” Maurice said. “So, the X’s and O’s part, you’re as dialed as you’re going to be on that. We’ll go through it, the basics of it, and then it’s to set a tone and a mood that allows them to play with a certain amount of freedom in that game that you encourage that in the style that we play and the hockey that we play.”

The Panthers were understandably down after their loss in Game 6, so Maurice and his staff began getting the players mentally ready to play Game 7 during a locker room meeting immediately afterward. That process has continued over the past two days.

“He's been great,” forward Ryan Lomberg said. “Ever since the second he’s got here, it's been the hard way and we’ve earned everything we've gotten up to this point. So, for us, it's pretty cliché, but if we would have told everybody in the locker room at the start of the year we'd be playing the last game of the season, Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, I think we all would have jumped at that opportunity.

“So, he's done a phenomenal job keeping us dialed in and making sure we're not too high or low.”

Maurice can become the second coach in League history to win his first five Game 7s, following longtime friend Pete DeBoer (8-0), his former teammate with Windsor of the Ontario Hockey League and his assistant with the Detroit Junior Red Wings in the OHL in 1994-95 who now coaches the Dallas Stars.

In Maurice’s most recent Game 7, the Panthers completed their comeback from a 3-1 series deficit with a 4-3 overtime victory against the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference First Round last season. So, Maurice has a decent understanding of what to expect tonight with the Oilers trying to complete their comeback from a 3-0 deficit.

“I think both teams come out flat out as fast as they can,” he said. “I think that’s going to be the manifestation of all of this. … They can just drop the puck and play hockey, and that will be a nice thing for them.”

Maurice became the second youngest coach in NHL history when he took over the Hartford Whalers in 1995 at age 28. It’s been a long journey since then for the now 57-year-old native of Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. This will be his 1,985th NHL game -- 1,848 in the regular season and 137 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs -- which would be the most by a coach before winning the Cup.

Maurice is fourth in NHL history with 869 regular-season wins, and only Scotty Bowman has coached more regular-season games (2,141). Bowman also won the Stanley Cup an NHL record nine times.

This is Maurice’s third Cup Final appearance. His first came with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2002, when they lost to Bowman’s Red Wings in five games. The second was last season with the Panthers, who lost to the Golden Knights in five games.

Maurice has never been closer to winning the Cup, but he still needs to squeeze one more victory out of the Panthers. He dodged a question Sunday about this Game 7 will be a career-defining moment, saying, “I’ll let you know at the end.”

Ultimately, though, the outcome will be up to the players.

“I'm sure he's going to have one heck of a speech tonight,” Florida forward Sam Bennett said. “But I think it just comes down to each player looking at themselves, and it doesn't take much to get up for a game like this.

“Everyone knows what they need to do tonight. It's just a matter of doing it.”