Few NHL coaches have the kind of aura around them that the 57-year-old Canadian coach has built up by Paul Maurice about.
From Ontario, Sault Ste. There are more stories about the pilot from Marie than about many servicemen combined – and what’s special, they are almost always positive ones.
Maurice is known for his incredible suplitics and performance skills. Maurice, who has coached the second most games in the long history of the NHL, has a cult following.
Once, holding a press conference on the morning of a match in Winnipeg, Maurice noticed a ten-cent coin on the floor and pointed it out. After the event ended, he grabbed a coin from the floor and put it in his pocket, because “I’ve received a shoe three times, this might still be useful”.
In the case of Paul Maurice, the outcome of the match often has no bearing on his post-match performance. Quotes are funny in one way or another.
When the Rangers beat Florida in overtime in last spring’s playoffs and the coach was asked if he had already seen the game-tying goal, Paul Maurice answered as only Paul Maurice could.
– I haven’t seen it yet. I don’t know if you’ve been to this Arena (Madison Square Garden), but our video trainer is three zip codes away from our locker room. I haven’t seen him, and I’m not sure if he’s still working for us, Maurice painted, making the media room roar for the umpteenth time in his career.
Earlier in the spring, Florida had secured a playoff spot, but by playing poorly. Maurice was not in the mood to talk after the match.
– Today is free quote day. Write whatever you think I would say. I’m not complaining about it.
Guaranteed Maurice was also the statement after the fifth playoff game played against Boston. Maurice had roared red-faced to his team in the middle of the match and commented on the events after the match.
– I don’t know exactly what the message says. I wasn’t mad at them, I was trying to understand what they were going through. I just thought they needed a little swearing in their lives and I provided it. I’m not particularly good at many things, but damn it, I can do that, Maurice insisted.
When Winnipeg acquired a defenseman Dylan DeMelon in the winter of 2019, Maurice was more than happy with this debut, describing it colorfully.
– His bat broke several passes and the opening passes clicked on the shoulders. It was pure, if you could call it coach porn. When you watch it on video, you know it’s pretty damn good.
Maurice once compared getting fired by coaches to a divorce.
– I come home one day and the wife says: “Paul, now we’re going in different directions. There’s a press conference in three hours, and there we’ll discuss how good the new husband is.”
What lies behind the supliki and the fun?
The career is undeniably long and successful after last summer’s Stanley Cup victory at the latest. To be only 57 years old, Maurice has coached a huge number of games in the NHL, 1,859. The above is only Scotty Bowmanwho stopped coaching at the age of 69 after reaching 2,141 games.
If Maurice coaches as long as Bowman, or even as long as Buffalo’s 64-year-old Lindy Ruffthis goes completely into its own readings in the match statistics. When the Hartford Whalers hired Maurice in the summer of 1995 at only 28 years old, he was the second youngest head coach in the NHL.
The local paper, the Hartford Courant, Connecticut’s largest and reportedly the longest continuously running newspaper in the United States, made fun of the young coach.
In the cartoon, the police were barely chasing the kid over the edge of the rink to see the little guy out of Hartford’s locker room, but the players calmed down the authorities, telling them that he was their coach.
Even then, Maurice showed his ability to laugh at himself. This one framed the picture for himself.
– My parents would get a good laugh out of this, the pilot stated.
However, Maurice’s career has not been a parade march to the championship. 14 of the first 19 seasons ended with either missing the playoffs or being fired.
When Florida hired Maurice, who had previously coached Hartford, Toronto, Carolina and Winnipeg, his teams had averaged 86 points in the regular season during the coach’s 24-year career. More than a hundred had been reached only once.
It has been asked from time to time whether Maurice is as good at coaching the game as he is at appearing for the media.
– In my opinion, he is not the best with the game, but good enough. He has never underestimated that aspect. In addition, he has an excellent ability to take things that work in other teams as his own and apply them there, the reporter of The Athletic, who closely followed Maurice in Winnipeg for nine years Murat Ares says.
Maurice’s greatest strength is still considered in many places by both the players and those who closely followed the teams to be people management and the ability to motivate the team.
– The first thing that comes to mind is his ability to pump up the team. It’s a big part of his coaching, who played under Maurice in Winnipeg, who currently plays in Switzerland Sami Niku states.
– Motivation is his greatest strength. He recognizes who the most important pieces are. Blake Wheeler in Winnipeg or Alexander Barkov and Matthew Tkachuk in Florida. He creates a relationship and gets them to buy whatever system they want. With good players, he is an excellent coach because he gets them motivated and gives their all, Ares says.
Over the years, Maurice’s teams have played very different hockey. In the best season in Winnipeg, the aggressive passing game and driving against the defenders were new and worked excellently.
In Florida, Maurice put an end to open-door headless hockey, taking the game in a more modern rhythmic direction.
– I think he is a coach who needs a good team around him when thinking about game style issues. Others are perhaps responsible for the x’s and o’s on the board, and he is more of a leader, says Niku.
Where are the weaknesses?
In the case of Paul Maurice, it has also sometimes been considered whether he can escape criticism more easily through the subliquor and performance that has become a phenomenon in the age of social media. There have been surprisingly few voices around the pilot during Winnipeg’s years, for example, even though the team was actually successful in only one of the nine seasons.
– Yes, I’m sure he sometimes gets away with things because of that, journalist from Winnipeg Scott Billeck says.
When asked about Maurice’s weaknesses, Niku brings up communication, even though Maurice has often been praised for that. Niku played well in the AHL and was chosen as the league’s best defenseman in 2018, but the breakthrough in the NHL was not successful under Maurice.
– Those were difficult years for me, so of course I didn’t get the best picture of him. I myself missed honesty.
– If the game doesn’t work, at least I would like to hear it myself. Or the reason why we put it on the farm. He said that everything is fine and still put down. I would have liked to be told directly.
Niku is not alone with the income angle.
– Young players are his blind spot. He loves his veteran players and often also puts them in lower chains and smaller roles, and therefore does not give space to youngsters, Billeck sees.
– The veterans got a lot more mercy than the youngsters in Winnipeg. That could lead to problems in the locker room at a time when the team was declining and Wheeler wasn’t as good anymore. Florida doesn’t have that problem with that top team, but as the top players age, some problems may arise, Ares believes.
Fulfillment liberates?
After 24 years in the NHL and one in the KHL in Magnitogorsk, Paul Maurice, with his strengths and weaknesses, has reached one end point in his career: winning the Stanley Cup after a long day’s work was certainly a huge fulfillment for the coach and might even release something in the experienced pilot.
– I closed my eyes while lifting the trophy because I really wanted to feel everything. When I opened my eyes, the whole team was looking at me smiling. And I cursed at them like I always do, Maurice felt in the summer in Florida.
And even in moments of victory, Maurice knew how to paint a colorful bigger picture in his own style, but he didn’t draw himself into it. Maurice doesn’t want himself in the front row.
– One of my favorite memories is from December last year. Our club’s advertising slogan was “Time to hunt”. Then there was this guy on the other side of the rink from our bench with a poster that read “Time to hunt for a new coach”. It was awesome. He brought it up every timeout, Maurice grinned.
– This cannot be coach-oriented. It starts with the players and the dressing room.
Supliikki and charisma spoke again, and there is nothing wrong with that in the sports entertainment industry either.
– That’s how it works with everyone. People want to work with guys they like. Maurice is funny and charismatic and that’s why the players and the media like him. Charisma helps him, but we shouldn’t forget that he also has a lot of knowledge and skills, Ares reminds.
Emancipation or not, it is certain that the flame still burns inside Paul Maurice. Many background interviewees underlined Maurice’s burning love for hockey and the people around it.
That’s why there’s colorful entertainment behind the bench, behind the scenes and in the media rooms this season as well – because few people know how to package even the weakest evenings in the style of Paul Maurice.
– The coach was bad, the players were bad, the food was bad. I hope the plane works, Maurice stated for once.