Why Panthers coach Paul Maurice had a good feeling his team would beat Bruins after fire alarm saga
The fire alarm at the Panthers' team hotel went off hours ahead of Game 6.
Panthers coach Paul Maurice had a good feeling hours prior to Friday’s Game 6 that his squad would end its second-round series against the Bruins that night.
Roughly five hours before puck drop, the fire alarm went off at the Panthers’ team hotel in Boston. The alarm went off during the time many players take a pregame nap, potentially throwing them off guard in the moments ahead of Game 6.
“It’s superstitious, right?” Maurice told reporters of the incident. “In my career, the number of times that something got messed up at a hotel – and we stay at wonderful hotels, this is not a complaint, but the hotel we’re staying at is gorgeous. But if something gets messed up, it’s like a guaranteed win. So, the alarm is going off at 2 in the afternoon.
“I didn’t think I was sleeping today, but around five minutes to 2 it almost happened to me and then five minutes after, that place was rocking. I thought, ‘If this holds true, I guarantee we’re winning tonight.'”
The Panthers went on to prove their coach right, beating the Bruins 2-1 on Friday to end Boston’s season.
Maurice didn’t seem to think the alarm situation impacted his team’s play at all. The Panthers got off to a slow start, allowing Pavel Zacha to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead in the waning moments of the first period, and were held scoreless through the first 30-plus minutes of play.
Florida eventually woke up, with Anton Lundell evening the game just under 13 minutes into the second period before Gustav Forsling scored the series-winner with 1:33 left in regulation.
The Panthers will get some time to rest to now ahead of their Eastern Conference Finals series against the Rangers, which begins Wednesday. But Maurice wanted the rest ahead of Friday’s game, too. He said he didn’t want to evacuate the hotel when the alarm went off, comparing it to the aftermath of a rough loss.
“You’re so tired, you’re like, ‘Who cares?’ If you lose the last game, you don’t care if the plane goes down,” Maurice said. “It’s like, bleh. I know it’s extreme, but I’ve had that moment.”
Friday marked the second straight year that the Panthers ended the Bruins’ season. Florida upset Boston last year, winning in seven games in the first round after the Bruins’ historic regular season.
While this series only went six games, Maurice was in awe of what happened on the ice. He called it an “amazing series from behind the bench,” remarking that while “it was dirty, on both sides,” it was also “heavy, clean, and brilliantly skilled, at times. It was a grind, but both goalies were phenomenal.”
“I said this on the ice, but I would pay money to watch Boston and Florida play,” Maurice added. “If we did 82 games, there would be nothing left of these men. But it is hard and fast, highly skilled at times and brutal and violent at times. It’s what all of the best parts of hockey is, the Bruins series.”
Game 6 was also the sixth straight playoff game that the Panthers won against the Bruins in Boston. The Bruins’ goal-scoring dried up at TD Garden, only putting five pucks past Sergei Bobrovsky in the three games on home ice this series.
Maurice didn’t brag in any way though when asked how his Florida slowed down Boston’s attack, admitting, “in truth, some of it is luck.”
“There are too many inflection points when you look at Florida-Boston games to say, for me to be that arrogant to sit here and say, ‘Well, this is how we did it,'” Maurice said. “I’ve got no idea. Like, you can take the last six games that we won and we could’ve lost every single one of them. We could, it was that type [of games].
“They’re a hell of a team. It’s great hockey. I don’t know what it’s like for you watching it, but when you stand behind the bench in this, it’s as heavy hockey that I’ve ever seen. That goes 30 years back when they were actually trying to kill each other. It’s an awesome game to see at ice level.”
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