Past 3 years with Florida have helped veteran coach put personal journey into perspective
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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Paul Maurice stops himself after the first syllable, as he thinks over the words that he’s saying, the emotions that he’s describing. He thinks better of what he has started.
“I was at pea—” Maurice begins. He pauses.
“I could manage it mentally,” he clarifies. “That’s a better way to put it instead of saying I was at peace with it. I could manage it. And then this just happened.”
Maurice was out of hockey back then, in the first half of 2022, having left his job as head coach of the Winnipeg Jets of his own volition on Dec. 17, 2021. He had stepped down, citing the fact that the team needed a new voice, needed something that he wasn’t providing. He considered himself, effectively, retired.
Six months later, Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito called.
Maurice became the head coach of the Panthers, the fourth franchise (and fifth team) he has helmed. He went to the Stanley Cup Final. He lost. He went again. He won.
The three years since what happened, happened, have been an earthquake for Maurice, a “life-altering” experience that changed him, changed his narrative, changed the way he can think about a career in hockey that has made him a lifer among lifers.
“I wasn’t happy with the way it ended,” Maurice said, in a sit-down with NHL.com on Sunday. “But I could live with it. I could say, OK, it’s just not going to be – we don’t have to talk about hockey anymore, we can talk about something else.
“I think as you get older and you move further away from — I mean the word would be failure, I hadn’t won. Just that’s the truth. It’s just, how was your career? Eh, I never won. That’s how I would have taken it. It was great, we can talk about great stories, great games, lots of fun. I would say, but we never won.”
And then he did.
It has been a year since he lifted the Stanley Cup he chased since he learned it existed, since the Holy Grail had his name engraved, since he no longer had to mentally manage the disappointment.
He is back again, trying to cement his team among the all-time greats, as his Panthers face off against the Edmonton Oilers for the second straight season in the Stanley Cup Final, as they play in their third straight Cup Final, starting on Wednesday with Game 1 at Rogers Place in Edmonton (8 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TNT, truTV, MAX).
“I’ve learned more about life and hockey in the last three years from these players than I could ever possibly imagine,” the 58-year-old said. “It has been life-altering working with these men. And I’m specific with my words. There’s no hyperbole to it. It has absolutely been life-altering coming to the rink working with these men.”
The crew discuss coaches Paul Maurice and Kris Knoblauch facing each other for the second time
It’s a world away from where he was.
He had spent that six-month hiatus outdoors, mostly, fishing and working and being. He knew that he might be done with the game of hockey, the place where he had made his home his entire life, ever since he started playing, ever since he was handed the run of the Hartford Whalers at 28 years old by Jim Rutherford.
It could have been the end for him. He considered himself retired, something his dad had done at 54 after spending his days as an elementary school principal. Now, at 54, it might all be over for him, too.
He could manage that. He could manage the emotions and the unfulfilled dream, the goal he had been working toward for 24 years as a head coach in the National Hockey League, for his whole life, really. He could reason his way to acceptance.
But.
“One of the days at the lake, I get up, put my boots on and I probably spent 11 hours outside working and I loved it,” Maurice said. “Except I was still working and I’m thinking, if I’m going to be working, if this is what’s left for me, you get up and you do stuff all day, might as well be hockey. So that’s kind of how it found me more than I found it.”
Few people are more precise with their language, more nuanced in their takes than Maurice. He often stops himself in the middle of sentences, press conferences, wanting to convey exactly his thoughts, with no misunderstandings, no room for misinterpretation.
He is particularly attuned to how his affection — his appreciation — for this team, this group of Panthers players reflects on those who have come before. They have been life-changing, he has said. But, at the same time, that doesn’t negate his Jets team and Jets players, or the Carolina Hurricanes or Toronto Maple Leafs or Whalers.
It is an important distinction to him, to the respect he has for them.
It’s noticed.
“He keeps things light, but he expects us to work our hardest and [he’s] very prepared and can get you up for a Tuesday night game against Columbus or whatever in the middle of the year, feels like a playoff game,” forward Matthew Tkachuk said. “His speeches and his ability to get us to run through a wall each and every game is a big gift.
“But he gets the buy in from the players and he treats all of us the same, which I think is really important as a coach, not to treat guys differently. He expects us all to work hard and treat each other with respect and everything, but he treats us all the exact same.”
It’s also the reason for the stops and starts, the rethinking of words, the careful crafting of what could otherwise be a throwaway line.
“He knows the game very well,” goalie Sergei Bobrovsky said. “He knows the human mind very well. He knows what to say and when to say [it]. He’s a big leader and he’s a big reason why we have three finals in a row.”
When it all ended in Winnipeg – or, to be precise, when Maurice ended it – he was exhausted, worn out. Burnout had crept in and, as he put it, “by the of it, I wasn’t any good at my job and I didn’t feel like I was effective.”
The mental stress was negatively impacting his life and, simply put, it was time.
But while the feelings were similar to when he was fired the first time with the Hurricanes, in 2003-04, after eight seasons, there were differences.
“I gave what I had to give in Carolina and I was fine with it. I was good with what I had done,” Maurice said. “I gave what I had to give in Winnipeg, but I was not fine with it. I was not good with where I’d gotten to. That’s the best way to sum it up.”
And that’s where he believed he would leave it. With the lawns always mowed and the grass always manicured and his days spent outside, with the disappointment that he couldn’t have been better for Winnipeg, a place that he holds dear, and where his daughter still lives.
Life, as he said, was perfect. He wasn’t in need of a return to hockey.
He was at pea—.
He was managing.
Maurice really wants to get his point across. He really wants to explain his career, how years of striving and working and hoping and falling short can be put into the context of now, of having won, of having reached a goal he had let go of attaining, a dream he had accepted would remain just beyond his fingertips.
“A little bit like this,” Maurice begins. “Let’s say you go to the casino and it’s pretty good. Like, sometimes you get to the final table, but not very often, it’s hard to get to that final table. Sometimes, you don’t even get invited to the tournaments, but you’re a professional poker player and you stack up 20 years.
“And then in the 21st year, you hit the jackpot and everybody is berserk and it is unbelievable, you just won $10 million dollars and it’s awesome. And you know that’s true, but you lost [$500,000] every year for 20 years so — this is exactly how I feel — everybody around you thinks it’s awesome. You do too. It’s good.
“But when you walk out of the casino, I broke even. It’s a really peaceful breaking even. That’s exactly how it feels.”
So what if it all ended today? Or if it all ended after this Stanley Cup Final, win or lose, would he be at peace?
“Yeah,” Maurice said. “One hundred percent. I would be at peace now. I’m still one under .500 in the Final. But I’d be — I’d be at peace. … I think prior to this, I could manage my career mentally and be OK with it. I had some pretty good ups, I had some really big downs. And I broke even. I’m at peace. One hundred percent.”
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