Paul Maurice Matches Best Season with Jets in Year 1 with Florida

Paul Maurice has been a member of the Florida Panthers organization for 330 days. Hired on June 23, 2022 after taking some time to himself following his mid-season exit in Winnipeg last December, the NHL's most losingest coach has already accomplished something with the Panthers that he did just once with the Jets.

In the spring of 2018, the Jets made their way to the Western Conference Final. Hosting Nate Schmidt and the Vegas Golden Knights, Winnipeg earned the series-opening victory at what was then Bell MTS Place.

With strong visions of a marquee Stanley Cup matchup with Alexander Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals clouding their judgment, the Jets crumbled, dropping four-straight at the hands of netminder Marc-Andre Fleury, as the Golden Knights advanced to the Stanley Cup Final in just their first season of play. 

That Conference Final appearance was Winnipeg's deepest playoff run since the team returned to Manitoba in 2011. The Jets have made it out of the opening round just once since that time (2021). Other than being swept in four games by Anaheim in 2015, the 2018 postseason run was the most playoff excitement the city of Winnipeg had experienced in more than two decades. 

Maurice was there for each of Winnipeg's playoff runs - save for 2023. In parts of nine seasons he was only able to get the team to the Conference Final once. And in that series the Jets picked up one victory.

Fast forward five years and the Panthers' newest bench boss has already earned that elusive win No. 9 of the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs, which matches his highest output in a single postseason with the Jets.

Sure, Winnipeg did not have the red-hot Sergei Bobrovsky at its disposal, but it had the 44-win Connor Hellebuyck. 

No, the Jets didn't have the 40-goal, 109-point Matthew Tkachuk up front, but Patrik Laine was coming off a 44-goal campaign, while Blake Wheeler finished the season with 91 points. 

Maurice has been a member of some very interesting teams, including that of the same Carolina Hurricanes that his Panthers are taking on this round. He even barked directions at former Canes' captain Rod Brind'Amour, to whom he is now squaring off against behind the bench. 

For the 56-year-old Sault Ste. Marie product, the memories of Carolina live on.

"When we first started there, they were just planting them and they were all about two feet high," Maurice reflected on the trees surrounding the Hurricanes' PNC Arena. "And now you can't see the building for the trees."

"It's a special place," he added. "It feels like a lifetime ago, so there's not the same connection over time. It's a great building. It's a loud building."

The second-youngest man to ever serve as a coach in NHL history (28 years old with Hartford in 1995), Maurice has worked his way through the Whalers, Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs, the KHL's Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Jets organizations, en route to his latest stop in South Florida. 

But he is now about as close as ever to finding his way back into the Stanley Cup Final. 

Thanks to the near seven-full periods of Game 1, Maurice's boys will need some extra R&R in advance of Saturday's second game, set to go at 6:00 PM central time from Raleigh, NC. 

"Both teams spent what they had," Maurice said. "That's a huge cost for both teams, and then it's a race to recover."