Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Paul Maurice has enough self-awareness not to take offense to Leon Draisaitl’s flying elbow to Sasha Barkov’s jaw in public.
After Barkov was eliminated from the Stanley Cup final in Game 2, some coaches would have been yelling. There would be general managers hammering on the NHL door, demanding explanations, suspensions, and retaliation in some sort.
But how can the Florida Panthers, who have Matthew Tkachuk and Sam Bennett on their roster and support edge hockey, ethically gripe about anything that occurs during this or any previous postseason?
Maurice understands that. He’s selling his game to the Panthers players. So, intentionally, he kept uncharacteristically quiet after the game Monday and maintained that position with his media availability the day after.
Barkov’s health is still unknown for Thursday night’s Game 3; but, the Panthers’ schedule, which includes an additional day off between games, favors them.
The NHL’s apparent department of safety is not expected to sanction Draisaitl in any way. Mostly because he’s Draisaitl, that is. However, in all honesty, the Edmonton Oilers and he have already suffered enough for his brief loss of composure.
With just 30 seconds remaining in Monday night’s game, Florida captain Alex Barkov was knocked out by Draisaitl, who left his feet and gave him a forearm shiver or an elbow to the jaw area.
Florida led by one goal at the time of Draisaitl’s roughing penalty. The game was that close.
But with Draisaitl in the box, Evan Rodrigues scored his third goal in two games to make it 3-1 Florida and basically pushed the Panthers to a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
The good news on Barkov, said Maurice, was that “he came in today and he wasn’t worse. That’s a really good thing.
“The real assessment should come tomorrow. And if he continues to progress, he should be a player for us.”
But it’s all speculation at this point.
