Florida Panthers Behind The Bench: Head Coach Paul Maurice

For a team to be successful it needs the right leader for the job. Paul Maurice is one of the most experienced coaches in the NHL and has proven to be the correct fit for the Florida Panthers. He led them to back-to-back Stanley Cup Finals in his first two seasons with the team and both his and the franchise’s first Stanley Cup win. It’s been a long time coming for Paul Maurice as he started coaching backing during the 1995-1996 season with the Hartford Whalers. Even prior to making the transition to coaching, he played four seasons with the Windsor Spitfires in the Ontario Hockey League from 1984 to 1988. A real personality behind the bench, you can see Maurice getting very animated with his players if they need “a bit of profanity in their lives.” This past season, especially, Paul Maurice started making a name for himself with how he interacts with the media, giving plenty of funny quotes during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. As his son works in media for the Florida Everblades, he’s been very personable and open with his own media people. One of my favorite quotes to come out of the playoffs came when Maurice was talking about Reinhart, “He’s a critical piece to the fabric of our team, except he’s a free agent, so he’s got a bad attitude.” Obviously a joke, but it did become a recurring thing he said anytime he was asked about Reinhart being a free agent, he even made a joke about Lundell only having half a bad attitude because he was a restricted free agent.

Paul Maurice and the Florida Panthers are a perfect match personality-wise, the Cats’ locker room is filled with a bunch of big personalities who are both fun but also hard workers and very driven and Paul is much the same. He wants to bring out the best in his players and expects the leadership to set the example for the rest to follow, which is why he says that Sasha Barkov is the perfect captain for the Panthers. The team has embraced Maurice’s defense-first mentality and style of play, making them one of the toughest teams in the league to play against, suffocating opposing offenses, and they led the NHL in goals against last season at 2.42 and tied for first in shutouts at eight. He also had seen in his first year with Florida that Reinhart and Barkov would be a formidable duo because, on paper, they should work, but it took a year for that to translate onto the ice. However, once it did, the two became one of the most dangerous forward pairs in the NHL. Reinhart had a career year, becoming the 2nd leading goal scorer in the league and led the NHL in power-play goals and short-handed goals, but Barkov is instrumental in getting plays to Reinhart. The way Sasha sees the game is extremely high level and he can make plays that few can, just look at the play during the Rangers game from late in the regular season, he bounced the puck twice on his stick as he was starting to fall and then got the puck to Reinhart for a goal. Paul Maurice recognizes players’ abilities and versatilities like how he has Rodrigues play up and down the lineup or that Lundell will be a great center like Barkov but that he doesn’t need to be Barkov 2.0.

Before landing in Florida, Paul Maurice coached for the Hartford Whalers, did two stints with Carolina, and coached in Toronto and Winnipeg. In total, Maurice spent 11 years with Carolina, nine years with Winnipeg, what will be three years with Florida, two years with Hartford, and two years with Toronto. When he got hired with Hartford, he was the second youngest head coach in NHL history and owns the NHL record for the youngest coach to reach 1,000 games and 1,500 games coached in the league. Paul Maurice is also the second youngest coach to reach 500 wins as well as one of three coaches to reach at least 300 wins with two franchises; Maurice had 323 wins with Carolina and 315 wins with Winnipeg which is a franchise record for the Jets. Paul Maurice is 4th all-time in NHL wins, a position he secured this past season. He’ll tie for 2nd all-time in most seasons coached in the NHL this coming year; he’s 2nd all-time in career games coached at 1848, also a position he secured this past season. He finally ended his rather unfortunate record of most games coached without a Stanley Cup. During the playoffs, he joked with the media that his son would be unbearable at home after the Everblades won the ECHL Kelly Cup, giving him two championship rings before Paul got one.

Paul Maurice is a perfect match with the Florida Panthers, and his personality meshes well with Flordia, both as a team and as Sunrise, as a city. The city embraces him and the Cats, and you need not look further than people being endeared by the custom cat shirt Paul Maurice wore to the Stanley Cup celebration on the beach or the positive reaction to the speech he made as profanity-laced as it was with the crowd chanting Paul’s name as he was introduced to speak. He thanked the fans in attendance at the celebration for making his and his team’s families feel welcome in Florida. Head Coach Paul Maurice may not be a Florida native, but he is a Florida Man.

Up next week: Part 1 of the Assistant Coaches