00:00All right, Joe, it's time to head back out to the Toyota of Hollywood Hotline Shop.
00:03Over 2,000 Toyotas on sale.
00:05One location, Toyota of Hollywood on 441 between Hollywood and Sheridan, ToyotaofHollywood.com.
00:10All right.
00:10Hey, man, we were waiting for this one.
00:13It's great to have him back.
00:14Panther season, ready to start tomorrow, the first of four road games in a row before coming home.
00:20Paul Maurice, Panthers head coach, joins us.
00:22Coach, it's great to have you back.
00:24How you doing?
00:25Great, Joe.
00:26Great to be back.
00:27It's a great time of year.
00:28Good to hear from you.
00:29Yeah, man.
00:30And, hey, a lot of changes before we get into the players and players you've added from seven games to
00:37four here in the preseason.
00:39A shorter camp, especially for vets.
00:41Did you have to change the way you did things?
00:44I heard you ran a pretty tough camp again.
00:47Yeah, we didn't want to lose that.
00:49It's so important to the culture and kind of the, you know, the indoctrination of new players coming in to
00:57a certain level of play.
00:59So we really did, we split camp.
01:02We, we, we, we, the first five or six days weren't, weren't very much fun at all for any of
01:07the players, but it's important.
01:08And then we came off them quite a bit.
01:10So we went light into speed the last six or seven.
01:13This is a new thing for everybody in the NHL at camp.
01:16So short, I think Joe, when I started camps for five weeks long and you started with a hundred guys,
01:20so small groups, uh, not a lot of prep time, which is fine.
01:25You got a veteran team, um, but we didn't want it because it couldn't be soft.
01:30It couldn't, we can't play the game that we need to play and change to a, a softer camp.
01:37So we went hard and we had a few guys get banged up, but we think we're healthy today.
01:41I talked to your team doctors who happened to be the dolphin team doctors as well about the great shape
01:47that you're, they've seen nothing.
01:49They've never seen anything like it, the way, the shape that your guys came in.
01:52Did you feel that way too?
01:54I did.
01:55It was the first, the summer that we had, the pain of the, of last season was repaid with some
02:01real rest and some real training.
02:03And some of it's just mental.
02:04They're wired.
02:05Uh, the story from the outside, we bring in two or three guys from other teams that are very fit
02:10and they've always considered themselves as the fit guy on their team.
02:14And then they walked into the weight room the first day and there were 20 other guys just like them.
02:17So we, but, and I'm going to say, we take a lot of pride at the players too.
02:21I mean, that's the, you can have, we've got great resources here.
02:25We have an incredible sports science staff.
02:27We've got great strength coaches, but if you don't have the men that want to drive to the cells like
02:31that, you just can never get to that level.
02:33But we're very fit.
02:35The first thing, like I said, the first three or four days are hard and all you're really watching for
02:39is recovery.
02:40So how long does it take a guy to go from bent over, stick on his knees to standing up
02:45ready for the next shift?
02:46And just felt to a man where we look stronger than we ever have.
02:50Wow.
02:50That's great.
02:51So, um, I always wonder, you've been doing this a long, long time.
02:55You got to make those final moves, some cuts, send guys down and they're thinking they got a good chance.
03:01What is that like when you have to sit down everybody, I guess, one-on-one and tell them where
03:06they're headed if they're not making your team?
03:08Yeah, that's a tough day for everybody.
03:10And this year, uh, would have been, it would have been the most difficult year for any player to make
03:16an NHL team out of camp.
03:17There just weren't enough exhibition games for guys to get long looks.
03:20You weren't, you weren't able to kind of come in, um, and have a couple of off days and recover
03:26from that.
03:27So, and then, but the big one really for us in our situation, we're very fortunate with, with a, with
03:33a really generous owner and we spend to the cap every year.
03:36So almost all the decisions that we made at, at that day were based on the salary cap and our
03:42opening roster, which means there are guys who came in and had great camps.
03:46That if you were, weren't constrained by the cap and if you had a longer runway and if the rules
03:51kind of on the CBA weren't what they were, they might've made the team or they'd certainly been on the
03:56roster.
03:56You'd have to, you'd carry 23, but we won't on our opening.
04:00We'll be right down to the bare minimum.
04:02So those guys, that's tough conversation for those guys.
04:05And, and you, it's tough to prepare for it.
04:08Um, there are young players who had good camps.
04:10It's a real positive meeting.
04:12Hey, continue your pro journey.
04:13You'll go play in our, for our minor league team and we're really happy with you.
04:17But then there are some veteran guys who've been in the game that's kind of been sent down before, heard
04:21it all before.
04:23And you want to be real honest with them about their camp.
04:25And some of them had great camps and you just don't have a spot for them right now.
04:28And some of them didn't have the camps they thought they did.
04:30And they need to be told that as well.
04:32So that's a tough day for sure.
04:34Um, the driver of all that is, you have to be as honest as you possibly can be so that
04:39over time people will understand that you're telling the truth.
04:42Coach, three years of going to Stanley Cup finals and last year just banged up, uh, to, to the point
04:48of just no, no shot.
04:50You feel like a little more, more motivation, maybe back off of what happened last year in the extra time.
04:57Yeah.
04:57Cause there was a feel around hockey and South Florida that, I mean, nobody gave up tickets, man.
05:03They realized what you got.
05:06No, you know what, Joe, we appreciate that.
05:08And I guess it probably didn't get said enough by me, but we had a tough year last year and
05:12I'm not sweeping that one under the rug.
05:15Every year you got a set of cards to play.
05:17I just couldn't figure out how to, how to get it with the cards that we had to play last
05:21year with our injuries, but our fans were great.
05:24We had some, we had some tough nights at home and we didn't play very well.
05:27And we got, we got beat a little bit and you never saw that from the fans.
05:31I mean, they were, there was a great, our last game, great crowd.
05:35I got 14 guys from our American League hockey team playing.
05:38Our fans were fantastic.
05:40So you're a hundred percent right.
05:42You know, they were excited about the regular season and that hasn't been true here.
05:48So in the last few years, you're coming into the training camp, you know, it's going to be tough.
05:52And then you got to play 82 before you get to the playoffs and you know, you know, that can
05:57be a tough thing in the start of the year to look at the mountain that you have to climb
06:02and realize how hard it is just to make the playoffs in this league and not be overly excited about
06:07it.
06:07But we are, we're all excited about it for the first time, just wired for this thing to get going
06:12tomorrow night and two extra games and an 84 game schedule.
06:17But we've got the Jews to be excited about it now.
06:19Coach, I am really excited to see Brady Kachuk, Barkoff and Reinhardt.
06:25I know, you know, it's just one line, but my God, that you talk about really expectations and watching some
06:32guys play together.
06:34That's going to be fun.
06:35Brady, of course, brand new to the team, Barkoff coming off a year off.
06:39And, and by the way, what a great off season, including you and I talked last time I talked to
06:44you about, hey, how do you feel about him playing after being injured all year?
06:47He goes over and he kicks butt and wins the whole thing with his team.
06:51Yeah.
06:52Bark, you had a great world championships.
06:56And I think as happy as you and I are, Joe Sam Reinhardt's the happiest guy in our locker room.
07:00He's got a centerman back and we added Brady.
07:03So there, there will be a lot of, you know what, I'm, I'm very optimistic about what Brady can do.
07:09And it's not from an individual point of view.
07:11It's, it's what he can do on that line.
07:14So Sasha Barkoff has never really played with a guy that's big and can move and has some hands.
07:19He's played with real fast guys that were a little bit light, but we think that Brady can eventually control
07:25the puck in the offensive zone with his size and his hand skills.
07:28So it's not all on Barkoff to do that.
07:31And, but certainly Sam Reinhardt's a shooter, right?
07:33He scored 57 goals.
07:34He's got two guys that can hang on to the puck in the offensive zone.
07:37So we're really excited about how he just fits with those other two guys and he can, you know, the
07:42great players make the people around them better.
07:45He will do that.
07:47He's also a young man at 26.
07:48So there's a, there's a whole nother level.
07:50We think that Brady can get to playing with the people he does, but playing with our group and playing
07:55at their pace.
07:55We're really excited about it.
07:57He fits in great, but he always has.
07:58He's been around our team and around our room.
08:01Ottawa said too much coach.
08:04Right.
08:04Well, he knows our, uh, he knows our guys.
08:07He knows them before he walks into the room.
08:09He's got a relationship with all of them.
08:11So that part's been seamless for us.
08:13Hey, besides, uh, Brady, how about getting Goudis back?
08:16Kind of, it kind of happened real fast.
08:18Everybody goes, I'm great.
08:19He's back.
08:19And then we kind of forgot, but boy, he's your kind of guy for what you do.
08:23Right.
08:24Yeah.
08:24So the style of play.
08:25And I don't know when you go back four years to our first year, the first team that couldn't quite
08:32get it done, uh, in the final.
08:34I don't think there's another player in that room that the guys that won the next year would want to
08:39share that with more than Radko Goudis.
08:42Just, just a wonderful man, incredible human being, but competitive and hard.
08:47Um, and I'm truly a Panther as we view it.
08:51I know he's played on a bunch of the teams, but that's, that's how we view him.
08:54So he walks into the room and there's another reason to drive.
08:56There's another reason to go.
08:58So in some ways, Radko Goudis is the fuel here, right?
09:01He's the other reason why you want to keep pushing and keep going.
09:05Cause you want him to experience that feeling with our group.
09:09And, uh, he's, he's been great.
09:10He and Dmitry Kulikov have formed a real fast friendship and, uh, they're going to be a great pair of
09:16forces this year.
09:17Uh, coach, uh, Brad Marchand, I keep hearing different dates.
09:20You got a pretty good ideas or within a few weeks when, when you expect them back.
09:25Yeah.
09:26It's overall.
09:27And, and we always kind of coach this cause you never know where it's going with some of these injuries,
09:32but it's better than it's going better than we had originally planned.
09:35And he's going to go see a doctor.
09:37I think when we get back off the road, uh, get another assessment, but he's been back on the ice
09:42at times and he's doing well.
09:44So we thought the month of October would be a rehab month for him.
09:49I think that's still true, but we may be shifting that that last part of rehab is purely conditioning to
09:55get him to a level that he's, that he's ready to play.
09:58He can't push as hard as he normally pushes with this injury.
10:02So we're going to need a little bit of buildup time for him to come back.
10:05But we're, we're on a, what I announced two weeks ago is still true today.
10:10He's doing well.
10:11He hasn't had a setback.
10:12So we're, we're excited that he'll be with us soon.
10:15I want to ask you about goalie play.
10:16I get this all the time.
10:17And honestly, coach, I don't know enough about it, but people, you know, talk about big Bob being gone and
10:22what you added and what we're going to miss.
10:23I said, Hey man, I think goalie is going to be good.
10:26Cause the defense in front of them is going to really help them a lot.
10:29Do you agree with that when you look at, we will, we will all play together here.
10:34And that is, I think Barkov can get to another level because Brady's here.
10:39We think our goalies can as well.
10:41And what we need to have happen with both of them is to them follow the same path that Sergey
10:46was on.
10:46And then you go back, Joe, before I got here and in the first five or six months, really almost
10:52the first entire season that I was here, Sergey was having a tough, tough year in the Nets.
10:57And then our game got better.
10:59His game got better.
11:00It went hand in hand.
11:01Certainly Sergey, God, you win two cups with a guy, you love him.
11:05And he had huge performances, but we believe that our goalies that we brought in are capable of following that
11:11same path.
11:12There's going to be a bit of an adjustment period.
11:13And that's just on style and tactics and the goalies aren't used to seeing the game in front of them
11:18look the way it looks because they played behind different teams.
11:21So there is a bit of a buildup.
11:23And once those reads become clean, we think both these guys have an incredible talent level that they can get
11:29to that level.
11:30So it's, it's, uh, we're, we're going to do our best for their goalies.
11:34Our expectations are that they are going to over the course of the year, kind of play the best hockey
11:39that they've ever played for us as Sergey did.
11:41Coach, it's going to be great, man.
11:43I can't thank you enough before you hit the road here.
11:45Uh, appreciate you coming on today.
11:47I hope we get to talk the next few weeks.
11:50Absolutely.
11:50Look forward to it.
11:51All right, Joe.
11:51Take care.
11:52Paul Maurice, head coach of the Florida Panthers, joining us to talk a little bit and talk about have a
11:58rolling system in place.
12:01Speaking of win now team, win now team.
12:04Oh, by the way, they've won a lot together and they had some great pieces to it.
12:09Anyway, we got a lot more stuff to get to here this morning is we continue on man on a
12:15busy Monday morning to talk about a lot of things.
