When the Florida Panthers defeated the Edmonton Oilers to win their second consecutive Stanley Cup, some Toronto Maple Leafs fans lamented another missed opportunity. After all, the Maple Leafs were the only team to push Florida to seven games during its championship run.
Notably, that fact wasn’t lost on Florida head coach Paul Maurice, who made sure his fourth line was on the ice for the final horn.
“I’m going to get you out there. I want you three f---ing guys on the ice for the last shift,” Maurice said on the bench in a clip that was shared on the Panthers’ TikTok account on Thursday. “So you throw s--- off when we win this. Because we’re down 2-0 against Toronto and you got us here. You get the last shift.”
The Maple Leafs were up 2-0 in their best-of-seven second-round series against the Panthers when the club elected to overhaul its entire fourth line, replacing Mackie Samoskevich, Nico Sturm, and Jesper Boqvist with A.J. Greer, Tomas Nosek and Jonah Gadjovich. Brad Marchand scored the overtime winner for Florida to avoid going down 3-0 in the series in what ended up being a critical turning point in the playoffs for both clubs. While things still could have turned out differently for the Leafs in later games of the series, it was Game 3 that Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving lamented the most when reflecting on Toronto’s postseason.
Maurice brought up Toronto frequently during the Stanley Cup Final. He was overly complimentary of the club after defeating them to advance in Game 7. So while this moment is meant for the Panthers alone, the clip is another reminder for the Leafs of what could have been had they gotten the job done in the second round.
