FORT LAUDERDALE — Paul Maurice was not pleased with the hit on captain Aleksander Barkov that knocked him out of Game 2 and put his status for Game 3 in question. When asked about containing Tampa Bay’s star player Nikita Kucherov, he said, “The only players we hit are the ones with pucks.”
After Florida star Matthew Tkachuk received a five-minute major penalty for an off-puck hit on Lightning standout Jake Guentzel, Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper used his counterpart’s own words.
“The only players we hit are the ones with pucks,” Cooper said.
The pair of hits and coaching quips add to the intensity of the series between the in-state rivals, though Maurice joked about Cooper’s comeback Sunday.
“He chirped me,” Maurice said, using a hockey term for trash-talking. “Yeah, I saw it. I’m at home, watching the Senators game, and he chirped me, right, which I appreciate. He used my own words on me, too. I’m not sure it was applicable to the events of the ice, but it was still good. Well done.”
Maurice added: “My wife had a good chuckle. I think she thought it was pretty funny. And I think the coaches probably will have to take over the chirping at some point. It’s kind of a lost art on the bench. It’s all good.”
The end result of the hits might work out in Florida’s favor. The Panthers hung on to win Game 2. Barkov returned in Game 3, apparently no worse for the wear, while the player who hit him, Brandon Hagel, was suspended for the game by the NHL. Tkachuk was sent to the penalty box for the end of Game 3, which Tampa Bay won 5-1. But he will reportedly not face a league-imposed suspension for Monday’s Game 4.
In addition to the penalized hits, the series has featured numerous post-whistle scuffles.
“It’s a really physical series,” forward Carter Verhaeghe said. “And after-the-whistle stuff, it’s tough to, I can’t really comment on it. Just is what it is. I think what we want to try and do is play hard between the whistles and kind of leave it at that. That’s kind of our focus. And yeah, some things get carried away after the whistle, and it is what it is.”
Maurice said after the game Saturday that he does not think the series has been particularly physical.
“I thought it was really, really quiet,” Maurice said. “I didn’t feel the intensity of the hitting was much. There was a different kind of puck control. There wasn’t as much time on the walls. There wasn’t as much forechecking, because there were more controlled entries kind of going both ways.”
The intrastate rivalry is intense among the fanbases, with supporters of each team duking it out on social media. And that spreads to the players, who face each other multiple times a year and have played each other in the postseason four of the past five years.
“We see them a lot during the regular season, many playoffs over the last few years,” veteran defenseman Aaron Ekblad said. “So the rivalry is strong, and it’s really fun and exciting to come into a game like that, where it’s such a strong battle.”
Will the series get more intense after the events of Games 2 and 3, and the subsequent coach quips?
“Oh, God,” Maurice said. “I hope not.”
