Colby Guy
SUNRISE — Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice has had to adapt his coaching style throughout his 26-year NHL coaching career.
Once known for directing a strictly staunch defensive game style, Maurice has opened up, allowing his team’s offensive tools to shine.
After all, it is how he has stuck around long enough to coach in his 1,800th game on Wednesday night when Florida visits the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Maurice has come a long way since he was promoted from a first-year NHL assistant to be the second-youngest head coach in the league history at 28 when he took over the Hartford Whalers.
In Maurice’s first game on November 7, 1995, Hartford beat the Sharks 7-3.
“You can see what Paul is trying to do,” said Dallas Stars coach Pete DeBoer, who got his first coaching job under Maurice in 1993 with the OHL’s Detroit Jr. Red Wings.
“They are trying to keep their offensive potency and have a little bit of conscience defensively to their game. I think everybody is looking for that fine line, and from what I’ve seen of Florida, Paul has done a pretty good job of doing that.
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“They are not turning pucks over; they are dumping it in more; they are forechecking more, so you can see the stamp he is trying to put on it.”
When he steps behind the bench in Tampa, Paul Maurice will become the third coach in NHL history to reach the 1,800-game milestone — and is the only active coach to do so.
Paul Maurice is also trying for his 837th career win.
That win total is good for sixth in NHL history and second among active coaches behind New Jersey Devils coach Lindy Ruff, who has 851.
A coach needs to be able to not only evolve his style of game but also get some buy-in from his players to take the parts of his style that have worked in the past to stick around that long.
And that was what he got from the Panthers, who played a run-and-gun game before his arrival last season.
“The challenge was great until you walk into the room and meet the people and the players are like ‘yeah, we want to defend, we want to win, and we’ll do the hard things,’” Maurice said.
“So it wasn’t difficult in some ways, but it was more difficult from a perception point of view because I understand that the fans were used to seeing these guys go up and down the ice and score every third shift and win by a whole bunch, but everybody knew that we couldn’t sustain it in the playoffs.
”But from the players in the room, there wasn’t really a fight there to play better defensively. It’s just not something that’s easy to do, and you have to learn how to do it. So we’ve got a really good staff here, and that’s not just coaches; it’s trainers and management, and we work well together.
“Most importantly, though, we get good players in the room, and you are a better coach when you have good players.”
Getting swept by their in-state rival in 2022 should have been a sobering enough experience for the Panthers to buy into Maurice’s defense-first mentality immediately.
Still, Maurice knew he had the right pieces to create a healthy balance.
With the team’s centerpiece being an all-world two-way forward in Sasha Barkov, the team can feel comfortable with its defensemen still jumping up into the rush at times to create offense.
But there had to be a balance.
And they found it when they went on their magical run to the Stanley Cup Final last season.
“This isn’t brain surgery,” Maurice said.
“The game is still just hockey, and it’s hard, and over the course of the past 50 years, the true thing is that you have to play if you want a chance to win.
“So the players were very receptive to that when we got here because they knew they had a pretty good team. They scored enough goals but they couldn’t understand why they weren’t winning and why there was so much frustration in the playoffs.
“Now, that’s not an easy thing to kind of change, but when you are taking a team and you are building them from scratch or when you are tearing them down and getting them young, they have to believe you for years. Here, they only had to believe me for four or five months.
“Having good players just shortens the time before the game of hockey teaches them right, not so much me.”
The buy-in has been noticeable throughout Paul Maurice’s second season at the helm of the Panthers.
When the team shied away from what worked during its 1-4-0 slide just before the holiday break, they knew they had to return to that structure even after scoring just two goals in those four losses.
Players immediately notice their mistakes and seek to correct them.
”It’s all about not cheating,” Aaron Ekblad told FHN.
“For example, on the goal that was called back [against St. Louis], I was cheating on the weak side and a 50-50 puck was up for battle and they got a 2-on-1 out of it. So my job in that situation is to be following the rush up the middle of the ice, so if things go wrong, I am there to support the 2-on-2 going back and if things go right, I can jump up there and play some offense.
“There are certain ebbs and flows to the game. Obviously, you are dying to create when you are down, but one of our main focuses right now is not cheating the game, like that situation or other situations.
“We just have to be in the right spot at the right time so we are available for offense and defense.”
ON DECK
FLORIDA PANTHERS @ TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING
- When: Wednesday, 7 p.m.
- Where: Amalie Arena, Tampa
- TV/Streaming: Bally Sports Florida, ESPN+
- Radio: WPOW 96.5-FM 2; WBZT 1230-AM (Palm Beach); WCTH 100.3-FM (Florida Keys); SiriusXM
- Panthers Radio Streaming: SiriusXM 932, NHL app
- Season Series — At Tampa Bay: Wednesday, Feb. 17. At Florida: March 16.
- Last season: Even 2-2
- All-time regular season series: Florida leads 75-50-19, 10 ties
- Up Next for the Panthers: Friday vs. Montreal, 7 p.m.