Panthers coach Maurice knows Game 4 of Stanley Cup Final will 'start at zeros'

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Paul Maurice has said it over and over.

Wins don't bleed over. Losses don't either.

The Florida Panthers coach said it earlier in the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Carolina Hurricanes.

Now, he's conveying that message in the Stanley Cup Final against the Edmonton Oilers.

So, whatever happened Monday in Florida's 6-1 win in Game 3 at Amerant Bank Arena, no matter how dominating or overwhelming or perhaps series-changing it might be, that's done. It's set aside.

The win was the Panthers' second straight in the best-of-7 series and gave them a 2-1 lead. But what about its potential impact on Game 4 here Thursday (8 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC)?

If you ask Maurice, there shouldn't be one.

"If you were to participate in that idea, you would think that you would be starting farther down the road than you do when the puck drops," he said Tuesday. "Every game starts at zeros, and it's a reset and it's a mental reset. Doesn't matter -- we got beat 8-1 in Edmonton (in Game 4 of the Final last season) and then came back and played Game 5 here, and for me that was the best game we played in the entire playoffs and we lost the game.

"So, if you don't participate in the idea of, 'Hey, maybe there's an advantage to be had,' then you also don't participate in the idea, 'Hey, maybe you've got a disadvantage now that you can't overcome.' So, you just leave it completely and then start at zeros."

On Tuesday, thus, there was a day off the ice. On Wednesday, likely a day on the ice.

And then, on Thursday, the focus can shift directly to Game 4, when the Panthers attempt to take a commanding 3-1 series lead and the Oilers attempt to even things up.

"Both teams are going to be wired (Thursday) night," Maurice said. "You can't stop it, so you need to have conserved today. For us, mentally, let the gate open a little bit tomorrow, do a little bit more video, get moving a little bit and you can start to feel it coming.

"But handling your day is something we've talked about just about every day, certainly in the playoffs."

That's easier said than done for a team in the shoes of the Oilers, who took the difficult loss that has them trailing in the series and may be rethinking and regretting some of what happened on Monday.

Or maybe not.

The Panthers certainly know what that's like. As Maurice brought up, they had that demoralizing loss in Game 4 of last season's Cup Final when they should have been riding a wave of momentum from opening the series with three straight wins and being on the brink of a championship.

Instead, they got walloped, then lost two more games before winning the series and the Cup in Game 7.

"It's more necessary when it's a loss sometimes," Maurice said of the reset. "Handling your day is something that we talk about all the time. It also allows you to be honest with your loss, go in and have a tougher meeting. And once it's handled, it's handled. So, the coach doesn't have to be jerk every day because of something that happened two weeks ago. We handled it.

"Some days you handle it by saying, 'We're never ever talking about that game again, it's forbidden,' and we move on. But you handle your day because you do need to compartmentalize some of the emotion that goes into these playoffs so you're not letting it bleed."

They don't have to never talk about Game 3 again. They won, scoring early and often against the Oilers, chasing goalie Stuart Skinner and dragging Edmonton into the physical and agitating style they like to play, enough that coach Kris Knobauch said his team had an "unraveling" in the third period.

But Maurice believes it means nothing for Thursday.

For either team.

"The experience of taking a beating and then being able to come back and play your next game let's you know (character is) there," Maurice said. "It's also what we expect from Edmonton."

He's seen too much to believe otherwise.

"You've got an emotional well that's kind of this big and it gets less and less as you go because you've got to go to the well a whole bunch of times to get here," Maurice said. "And then you get into a game like that and it goes away from you, it's over, and you move on to the next one.

"That's what happened last year to us."