Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice defended the Toronto Maple Leafs after his team eliminated them with a 6-1 victory in Game 7 on Sunday.
The Panthers advanced to their third straight Eastern Conference Final with the dominant win, but Maurice praised the Atlantic Division winners rather than criticizing them.
“This is a much better team than we played two years ago. Much better,” Maurice said, per NHL.com’s Dave McCarthy. “This team is in that group of teams like ours, there’s maybe 11 this year, then there’s eight that have a chance. They’re one of those teams. You’re going to assign a whole bunch of character flaws that just aren’t true.”
Florida also won 6-1 in Game 5 in Toronto. After the Leafs won Game 6, Maurice said the club didn’t deserve to get “killed” for its previous performance.
Toronto’s loss Sunday marked their seventh straight Game 7 defeat and sixth since establishing their current core.
The game remained scoreless after the first period before the Panthers took control with three goals in the second.
“We score the goal, and it’s just a puck to the net,” Maurice said. “It’s so much closer than you think, but you are going to kill those guys, and they don’t deserve it.
“Before the puck dropped tonight, there were five teams left in the NHL. Five, all of them capable of winning. The puck went our way tonight. That’s it.”
The Maple Leafs haven’t reached an Eastern Conference Final since 2002 and won only their second playoff series since 2004 this postseason.
Maurice, who coached Toronto from 2006 to 2008, highlighted the unique pressure facing players in the market.
“What’s great for the league is hard for the Toronto Maple Leafs and their players,” he noted. “The passion for the Maple Leafs, the scrutiny that these men are under, is why everybody else gets paid so much. It’s a driver, but there’s a cost to it for them. There’s a challenge. You can hit one out of the park here, and you’re never buying lunch again the rest of your life. But there’s a cost for these guys, for their families when you lose a game like this.”
