Sunrise, Fla. — Paul Maurice made the short trip from his home to the Florida Panthers’ practice facility on Monday morning in a pretty good mood and rightly so. The sunshine was bright, the temperature was warm and his team was one win away from claiming the Stanley Cup.
That’s the glass-half-full outlook. The glass-half-empty perspective would be how his Panthers were coming off a seven-goal loss – tying the second-worst defeat by any team in a playoff game since 2001 and tying the second-worst loss in a Cup final game ever.
As such, when asked if he was comfortable with a 3-1 series lead over the Edmonton Oilers in this title series, Maurice quickly explained that that simply doesn’t exist at this time of year.
“Oh, no, there’s no comfort in the playoffs,” the Panthers coach said. “You’re never in a comfortable position in the playoffs. You’ve earned your wins. You’ve earned your losses. It’s the same feeling. Every playoff loss feels the same. Maybe other people get comfortable. I haven’t had that for 30 years. You’re never comfortable. Which is good, right? Just got to harness it.”
The Panthers will seek to do just that on Tuesday night when, for the first time in their history, they will take to home ice one win from the Cup. Game 5 of the title series is in Sunrise, where the Oilers try to extend their season again and Florida tries to close out the series, the season and a 30-year quest for the franchise’s first championship.
Edmonton won Game 4 on Saturday night 8-1, the seventh time ever that a Cup final game was decided by seven or more goals. The record for differential was Pittsburgh’s 8-0 win over Minnesota in 1991.
“We’ve got the Stanley Cup on the line,” Florida forward Evan Rodrigues said. “Kind of a ‘How badly do you want it?’-type deal. There was a lot of energy going into that game. I think we’ll be better prepared for Game 5.”
The Oilers would expect nothing less.
It’s not fair to compare Edmonton’s horrible start to the season – it was at the bottom of the NHL a few weeks into the year – to being down 3-0 in the Cup final, but there is a parallel there in that the Oilers know what it’s like to play with no room for error. It brought out their best during the regular season, with a 16-game winning streak highlighting their turnaround, and brought out their best in Game 4.
“For us, being able to get to where we are shows everybody, no matter what they say, that we came together as a brotherhood,” Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner said. “So, there’s nothing but love in the room for the guys. A very special group of guys that just showed a lot of character through everything that we’ve been through. Here we are again, facing elimination, and we’re going to fight together, like we always do.”
Down 3-0 in the title series, Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch told his players that he wanted them to enjoy their last 10 days together. The meaning was clear: He fully believes his club can take this series to the limit and see what happens in a Game 7.
One win down, two to go before those Game 7 hopes become reality.
“I don’t think it was ever a doubt that they weren’t a good team and they could be here today,” Knoblauch said. “I think belief was always part of that room.”
The Panthers have it as well.
They’re 4-1 after losses in these playoffs, outscoring their opponents by a combined 21-10 count in those five games that immediately followed a defeat. Granted, none of those previous five defeats in this postseason run resembled anything close to Saturday’s 8-1 rout.
“Can’t dwell on what’s in the past,” defenseman Brandon Montour said. “I think the boys obviously were pretty (angry) about the result, about the outcome that we put forward. But we pushed that pretty quick after we left the arena and we’ll focus on the next one.”
The way Maurice sees it, Saturday has to be a learning experience.
Edmonton was desperate, Florida wasn’t ready and that was that. The Cup will be in the building again Tuesday, ready for Florida to claim, just like it was on Saturday.
“It is different,” Maurice said of playing a game with the Cup one win away. “There’s the feeling of the goal sits in front of the game that’s played. So, in Game 3, the goal is behind the game. Can’t win it tonight. The game becomes priority. But when you can, then it sits in front of the game and you’ve got to break through it or figure out a way to get it behind the game again. I don’t know if that makes great sense, but it’s foremost in your head coming to the rink. You know it’s there.”
Blue Jackets fire coach Vincent
The Columbus Blue Jackets on Monday fired coach Pascal Vincent after one season in which they were one of the NHL’s worst teams.
New general manager Don Waddell announced the firing and said the search for a new coach would begin immediately.
The Blue Jackets finished last in the Metropolitan Division with a record of 27-43-12 and 66 points in 2023-24 and missed the playoffs for the fourth straight season.
“As I spent time with Pascal over the past few weeks, I found him to be an outstanding person and smart hockey coach who worked very hard last year under trying circumstances, but I believe a change behind the bench is in our team’s best interest,” Waddell said in a statement released by the team.
Vincent joined the team before last season as an associate head coach but was elevated after new coach Mike Babcock resigned on the eve of training camp after an investigation into the Stanley Cup-winning coach’s bizarre conduct of asking to see photos on players’ phones. Babcock had been hired to replace Brad Larsen, who was fired after two losing seasons.
So Vincent’s first season as an NHL head coach began just before training camp opened in September.
The Blue Jackets then struggled with injuries that led Vincent to use 47 different players during the season. They finished with the worst record in the Eastern Conference.
Among key players lost were forward Patrik Laine, who entered NHL/NHLPA player assistance program after 18 games, and Adam Fantilli, one of the NHL’s top rookies who was badly cut on his calf by a skate in January.
Both top goaltenders, Elvis Merzlikins and Daniil Tarasov, also struggled with injuries.
The Blue Jackets amassed 98 points and won a playoff series – a sweep of Tampa Bay – in the 2018-19 season under John Tortorella. They lost in the first round of the playoffs the next season, and it’s been downhill from there.
Tortorella was fired after the 2020-21 season and Larsen, one of his assistants, then went 62-86-16 in two seasons.
Father’s Day weekend gift
Father’s Day came early for Shawn Mullin and his 9-year-old daughter, Audrey.
Despite the Oilers falling behind 3-0 in the Stanley Cup Final against the Florida Panthers, they decided to make the six-plus-hour drive to Edmonton from their home in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, for Game 4 on Saturday night.
About halfway through, their car clipped a deer and went into ditch. The deer ran away, the bumper was damaged but the car was drivable, so they continued on their journey.
Upon arrival in Edmonton, they had to switch hotel rooms because of bed bugs and Mullin worried the trip was cursed. The line was too long to see Shania Twain perform at the pregame concert, but what happened next changed everything.
A little while before puck drop, they were approached by a couple asking if they had tickets for the game. When they said no, they were handed front-row seats on the glass.
“How do I feel? Grateful?” Mullin, a hockey broadcaster, told The Associated Press by phone Sunday. “Complete strangers just chose to gift us that opportunity out of nowhere.”
Audrey got a puck during warmups, handed to her by a young boy, perhaps Corey Perry’s 6-year-old son, Griffin, who did the same to another fan before Game 3 after getting it from his dad.
“We were blown away by it,” Mullin said, “It’s a really sweet, generous gesture.”
Then Shawn and Audrey got an up-close view of the Oilers 8-1 win that kept the series going. Waking up the next morning, her Father’s Day card to him was a list of the “Top 5 things about my dad” and the first was, “He’s always there.”
“It’s going to be hard to top this ever – very much hard to top this ever,” Mullin said. “Even though things get fuzzier (from) when you’re younger when you get older, that’s going to be one of those things that sticks with us for a long, long time.”
Bobrovsky is back
Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky showed no signs of a Game 4 hangover when his team returned to the ice for practice Monday.
Bobrovsky had one spectacular save that had teammates howling in delight during the workout, which came two days after he was pulled during Florida’s 8-1 loss at Edmonton on Saturday night.
Florida coach Paul Maurice knew Bobrovsky would be fine, especially since the Panthers put none of the blame for getting blown out on their starting goalie.
“There’s no bounce-back,” Maurice said. “It’s not like we were lights-out and he had a tough night. I got him out of there because he wasn’t going to have anything to do with anything positive that might happen.”
One million in attendance
The Panthers could top the 1 million mark in total-season attendance for the first time Tuesday night.
Florida drew 763,931 fans during the regular season and has sold another 216,273 tickets during the playoffs – pushing the 2023-24 total, before Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final, to 980,204.
It’ll need 19,796 fans in attendance on Tuesday to hit the milestone number.
Seventh win by 7
Edmonton’s seven-goal win in Game 4 of the Stanley Cup Final was the seventh time in franchise history that the Oilers won a playoff game by such a margin and the first time in a title-series game.
The Oilers’ record for a playoff win is 10 goals, a 13-3 win over Los Angeles in 1987. They had a nine-goal win over Chicago in 1985, and a pair of eight-goal wins over Calgary in a four-day span of 1983.
The other seven-goal wins before Saturday were over Winnipeg in 1984 and Los Angeles in 1990.
Warsofsky looks to bring ‘light’ to Sharks
Ryan Warsofsky had a front-row seat to some of the worst hockey played by the San Jose Sharks since their expansion days as an assistant under David Quinn the past two seasons.
Now the 36-year-old who was hired last week as the youngest coach in the NHL will be tasked with overseeing a youth movement led by projected No. 1 overall draft pick Macklin Celebrini that Sharks general manager Mike Grier hopes can get the franchise back into contention.
“We just went through two really tough years. I know what they need,” Warsofsky said at his introductory news conference Monday. “They’re beat up a little bit. We need some new light. We need some energy. We need some positivity. Now we have some hope with the prospects that are coming.
“This is a really exciting chapter in this franchise with the prospects that Mike’s brought in and drafted and we’re starting to develop and now with this draft coming up. So exciting times are definitely ahead.”
Those exciting times have been lacking since San Jose made a run to the Western Conference Final in 2019. San Jose has missed the playoffs for five straight seasons and bottomed out the past two as Grier began a teardown that now seems primed to bear fruit in a rebuild.
Grier traded away several star veterans such as Erik Karlsson, Brent Burns, Tomas Hertl and Timo Meier to help restock a prospect pool that was bereft when he took over and now will add the No. 1 overall pick after winning the draft lottery last month to a group that has several talented young players.
Grier believed Warsofsky was the perfect fit to lead a young group with his ability to communicate and relate with young players and his experience developing them as a successful coach in the AHL before joining San Jose.
“He’s a great communicator, which is going to be important,” Grier said. “We’re going to have a young group here. Connecting and speaking with and bonding with these young players is going to be super important. It’s going to be a big part of us taking the next step forward. He just checked every box to us.”
Warsofsky previously had been head coach of the Chicago Wolves for two seasons in the AHL. He led the Wolves to the AHL’s best regular-season record with a 50-16-5-5 record in 2021-22 and captured the 2022 Calder Cup.
That kind of success has been lacking in San Jose.
The Sharks went 41-98-25 in Quinn’s two seasons for the worst mark in the NHL in that span, including a league-worst 47 points this past season. San Jose’s 19 wins this season were the fewest in a full season since the franchise’s second year as an expansion team in 1992-93.
The Sharks were non-competitive at times, allowing at least six goals in 18 games, including back-to-back games early in the season of 10 goals allowed.
“There will be some changes,” Warsofsky said. “Obviously, the numbers weren’t great, the analytics weren’t great. We have to make changes. There has to be a system in place that our players know what’s going on. They understand the system. … When we have the puck we know what to do with it and when we don’t, we know how to get it back.”
San Jose has had the worst record in the NHL the past five seasons and has struggled to fill the Shark Tank with fans turned off by the poor play on the ice. The fan interest started to change as soon as the Sharks won the draft lottery.
Team president Jonathan Becher said the season ticket renewal rate is the highest it’s been since the team made a Stanley Cup run in 2016 and that new sales are also trending at a record pace. Becher said the team is on target to sell out its draft watch party and could double the previous high attendance for it by any team.
“Obviously the mood around the franchise substantially changed after the number one pick went our way,” Becher said.
Grier ended the news conference by making a point to shut down rumors that he is looking to trade captain Logan Couture, who played just six games this past season because of injuries.
“That is absolutely false,” Grier said. “If you look at us bringing in young players here and having a young team, he’s exactly the kind of person you want to have around your young players. He’s our captain. He had a tough year but we love him, as a person most importantly but he’s also a heck of a hockey player.”
NHL final
(Florida vs. Edmonton)
(Florida leads 3-1)
▶ Game 1: Florida 3-0
▶ Game 2: Florida 4-1
▶ Game 3: Florida 4-3
▶ Game 4: Edmonton 8-1
▶ Game 5: Tuesday, June 18 at Florida, 8 p.m.
▶ Game 6: Friday, June 21 at Edmonton, 8 p.m.
▶ Game 7: Monday, June 24 at Florida, 8 p.m.
Eastern Conference
Third round
Florida vs. N.Y. Rangers
(Panthers win 4-2)
▶ Game 1: Florida 3-0
▶ Game 2: New York 2-1 (OT)
▶ Game 3: New York 5-4 (OT)
▶ Game 4: Florida 3-2 (OT)
▶ Game 5: Florida 3-2
▶ Game 6: Florida 2-0
Western Conference
Third round
Edmonton vs. Dallas
(Oilers win 4-2)
▶ Game 1: Edmonton 3-2 (2OT)
▶ Game 2: Dallas 3-1
▶ Game 3: Dallas 5-3
▶ Game 4: Edmonton 5-2
▶ Game 5: Edmonton 3-1
▶ Game 6: Edmonton 2-1
Second round
Eastern Conference
Carolina vs. N.Y. Rangers
(Rangers win 4-2)
▶ Game 1: Rangers 4-3
▶ Game 2: Rangers 4-3 (2OT)
▶ Game 3: Rangers 3-2 (OT)
▶ Game 4: Hurricanes 4-3
▶ Game 5: Hurricanes 4-1
▶ Game 6: Rangers 5-3
Boston vs. Florida
(Panthers win 4-2)
▶ Game 1: Boston 5-1
▶ Game 2: Florida 6-1
▶ Game 3: Florida 6-2
▶ Game 4: Florida 3-2
▶ Game 5: Boston 2-1
▶ Game 6: Florida 2-1
Western Conference
Colorado vs. Dallas
(Stars win 4-2)
▶ Game 1: Avalanche 4-3 (OT)
▶ Game 2: Stars 5-3
▶ Game 3: Stars 4-1
▶ Game 4: Stars 5-1
▶ Game 5: Avalanche 5-3
▶ Game 6: Stars 2-1 (2OT)
Edmonton vs. Vancouver
(Oilers win 4-3)
▶ Game 1: Canucks 5-4
▶ Game 2: Oilers 4-3 (OT)
▶ Game 3: Canucks 4-3
▶ Game 4: Oilers 3-2
▶ Game 5: Canucks 3-2
▶ Game 6: Oilers 5-1
▶ Game 7: Oilers 3-2
