Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice, center, instructs his players against the Toronto Maple Leafs, on May 7, in Sunrise, Fla.Michael Laughlin/The Associated Press
The indelible image of the Leafs-Panthers series is Florida head coach Paul Maurice standing behind the bench silently during Game 1, his hands spread across his chest like a corpse.
One hand had five fingers up – the number of penalties assessed to his team at that point in the game. The other hand had one finger extended – the number given to the Leafs.
Every coach in the NHL knows how to curse the officials. Few know how to influence them.
In Game 3, Florida took no penalties. You have to go back to the Victorian era for the last time that happened. They had two power plays and scored on one of them, which was the difference in the game.
This is where a guy who’s been around a while and seen a few things is an asset. Other coaches are thinking about the next shift. Maurice is thinking about next week.
Nobody really took to Maurice when he coached Toronto from 2006-08. It didn’t help that he inherited the job from Pat Quinn.
Maurice’s Leafs team was mediocre in an enraging way – almost good, but not quite. Sound familiar?
Frustrated fans wearied quickly of Maurice’s ponderous way of speaking and his philosophical asides. Part of that was probably down to his age. People don’t want to hear from a wiseman who isn’t yet 40.
But in the ensuing years, Maurice did the thing the Leafs still haven’t managed. He persevered.
There’s nothing revolutionary about his coaching style. He isn’t a rah-rah guy or a screamer. He’s been a hero in the same place (Winnipeg) that he’s been a goat. And while the NHL coaching and executive ranks have grown younger, Maurice is headed in the other direction.
Maurice is that thing they always talk about in the NHL – a survivor.
The Leafs came into this series thinking they’d finally reached survivor status. One series win. Mission accomplished.
The Leafs didn’t have to roll Florida. They didn’t even have to beat them. All they had to do was show up. Win the first game, maybe. Come back hard after a loss. Acquire a couple of good excuses – “goaltending” or “experience” or whatever. Some snappy, one-word explanation that makes sense to people and that you can credibly claim to fix in the off-season.
Also important – their best players had to play like they cared. Not score a million goals. Just appear to give a damn.
None of that has happened.
The Leafs haven’t showed up. Their goaltending hasn’t been a problem. Experience isn’t a good enough excuse. And someone should send the MPs out after their best players, all of whom have gone AWOL. Zero goals in three games from four players eating up 40 per cent of your salary cap is not winning math.
Maurice was asked about that non-production from Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander after Game 3.
Other coaches would give you an answer that is either too granular or too vague to make much sense.
Maurice’s explanation: “[Panthers goalie Sergei] Bobrovsky …” – ponderous nodding – “… That’ll be the end of that answer.”
Of course, it’s more than that. Toronto’s Big Four are also doing amazing tactical work at eliminating themselves. Mostly by skating backward.
If it takes a genius to nullify those four players, then every coach the Leafs have faced in the postseason since 2017 is Einstein-plus-Oppenheimer.
You don’t want to make everything about money. But if you’re going to demand a lot of money, then it eventually devolves to that topic.
Marner is paid US$11-million a year. Leon Draisaitl is paid US$8.5-million.
Right now, Draisaitl looks like he will score every time he touches the puck, even one that is handed to him on the team bus. Marner, on the other hand, is the only healthy scratch in league history who keeps showing up to games in his uniform.
The cost difference between a Draisaitl and a Marner is the difference between a Brandon Montour and a Justin Holl, with enough cap left for a Marc Staal.
When you think of it that way, it’s a ton of money. Not that the Leafs would know how to spend it if they had it.
In terms of pure talent, Maurice has access to less. But having figured out how to utilize the tools he was given, Maurice is having one of the great seasons of his long, good career.
He’s talked recently of how he’d lost his joy for the game in Winnipeg. If he makes his second Stanley Cup final, more than 20 years apart, I imagine that will make him pretty joyful.
Asked the same question about the Leafs stars on Monday, Maurice had tweaked his approach.
“I don’t know,” he said, now doubting whether Marner & Co. have been stopped at all. “It’s just inches inside the post and outside the post is the difference.”
You can see what he’s doing here. “You guys are actually really good. Don’t change a thing. I believe in you [losing].”
It’s mind games within the mind games, but softly. No need to shout.
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For their part, the Leafs come armed with the one dependable part of their collective game – clichés. “Backs to the wall;” “No choice now;” “Do or die” – and that was all one guy, Matthews.
Truth is, it isn’t do-or-die for Matthews or his star colleagues. Their backs are against no walls. They’re not going anywhere. After this performance and given what they earn, who’d give up proven talent for them? The best you could get in return is some other team’s reclamation project(s).
Wednesday’s game is a must-win, but not for the Leafs stars. It’s only do-or-die for everyone else in the organization.
All the protection given to coaches, management and second-tier on-ice talent by the Tampa win has been shorn away by the manner in which the Leafs have played in this series. All the bad things people say about them – not tough enough, ill-constructed, no fightback, zero leadership, cursed – are on display here. If they can’t win even one, then …
There are plenty of people to blame for this fiasco, but none moreso than Maurice.
It’s not just that he’s outmotivating, outmanoeuvring and outcoaching his former team. It’s that he is holding up the way in which this Leafs roster has been built to a hard light, and pointing out in his quiet, ruthless way all of its flaws.
Cathal Kelly