Dave Hyde: Paul Maurice puts Panthers loss in perspective — embracing his inner Will Ferrell

SUNRISE — The question, an expected one after a tight loss, after a Game 4 grinder, after this playoff series was sent spinning back to Canada, was about not taking advantage of your opportunities when . . .

“Yesssss,’’ Panthers coach Paul Maurice interrupted.

He wasn’t caustic or dismissive. He smiled.

“When you’re saying that, I’m thinking of Will Ferrell, you know exactly what I’m talking about,’’ he said.

Uh, we do? I didn’t know what he was talking about. My mind riffed through Ferrell in “Old School,” in “The Internship,” in “Wedding Crashers” . . .

“That basketball movie, when he said, ‘Yes,’ ’’ Maurice said.

That sent trained journalists from two countries googling. The movie: “Semi-Pro.” Confession: I’ve never seen it. Who knew Maurice had? Who knew he was even a movie watcher, much less a comedic line-quoting fan in the immediate aftermath of a playoff loss? The old line is true: You really learn who people really are in the postseason.

Fresh off a 2-1 loss to Toronto on Wednesday night, Maurice’s mind worked the uncommon corners and dredged up one of Ferrell’s movies where his comic character says lines like, “Everybody panic! It’s just like the Titanic but it’s full of bears!”

Nobody panic. One loss isn’t the Titanic. (I can’t work in the bears.)

That was Maurice’s message. But do you see what he did here? It’s one thing for a coach to dryly state that idea and it’s another for him to project a Will Ferrell character saying it to get the full emphasis across. And, no, this message wasn’t so much for you or me as for his players in the aftermath of not closing out this series and turning their minds to a trip to Toronto for Friday’s Game 5.

Maurice had his own words to add to whether the Panthers gave Toronto a chance by not closing this series out in Game 4 with a sweep.

“The opposite part of that idea is you expect a team with 112 points to have no life in a series,’’ he said of Toronto. “Or that if you just did what you could easily do (and win in 4). And I don’t think any of you would’ve picked that.

“So we would expect at the start to go to Game 7 smiling. We lost a game today, that happens in the playoffs. I think to everybody so far. And we get to play the next one. OK, we’re all good with that?”

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It’s fun to be an eighth playoff seed, fun to jump to a 3-0 series lead, fun to work in a market without oppressive demands fun, at least if you set your mind that way. And Maurice is smartly working this angle still up 3-1 in this series.

Look at the other side, too. Toronto remains at the epicenter of hockey. After falling behind 3-0, Toronto’s front office was being fired by the Canadian media and players were being traded. One win doesn’t change that. Two won’t. Four are necessary. The guillotine is suspended above this team in as polar opposite a hockey market to the Panthers as there can be.

It’s like Dolphins football there. Like life or death. And they’re constantly asked about that pressure, and if it shifted to the Panthers with a win, and . . .

“We don’t care, we’re about ourselves in here,’’ said star winger Mitch Marner, flatly, after Game 4. “We’re focused on that.”

Beyond such mindset, Toronto turned in the kin of effort in Game 4 they hadn’t previously this series. Maybe it was because rookie Joseph Woll was in goal, but after two periods their defensemen blocked as many Panthers shots (16) as Woll saved.

Maybe it was because of this pressure accompanying them, two of Toronto’s stars scored for the first time this series. They weren’t drawn-up goals by William Nylander (who took a pass from the referee’s knee) and Marner (whose wrist shot from the blue line went through I-95-ish traffic to score).

No matter. It worked. Random plays happen in playoff series. What happened Wednesday in Sunrise is Toronto created another day to its season. It’s similar to what happened in New York at the same time Wednesday night with the Miami Heat. The Knicks dug deep enough to keep that series going.

“That’s what we’ve been trying to get to,’’ Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “That’s what’s required. We can’t have any let-up.”

That’s how you expect a coach in a playoff series to sound. Tough. Demanding. A leader.

Only Maurice showed another way to navigate. It made a press room laugh and, by extension, showed another way to his team. A better way, really. Relax, he said, through Ferrell.

I don’t know Ferrell in “Semi-Pro.” I know him in “Wedding Crashers,” yelling, “Ma, the meatloaf!” But how to work that into a hockey column? Maybe he could’ve applied Ferrell, in “The Internship,” with a neck tattoo that said, “Make reasonable decisions.”

But his message was clear after this loss.

Ma, it was just Game 4.