Maurice has Panthers back in Cup final, fueled by mix of laughs and hard work

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Florida coach Paul Maurice keeps the day-to-day routine simple. Show up for work early and have copious amounts of coffee. Trust assistant coaches to do their jobs. Sit in on meetings when needed. Hammer home a consistent message with players. Swear a little bit sometimes, swear profusely at other times.

Hey, it works.

In the Stanley Cup Final for a third consecutive season with the Panthers, Maurice's style — laugh-out-loud funny at times, incredibly smart and serious at others — continues to deliver results for Florida. He was 41-51 in his playoff career before coming to Florida; he's 41-21 in his playoff career with Florida. A coaching lifer, he already was well-respected within the game before the Panthers brought him aboard, but he never had anything close to a run like this until now.

“I’m not being disrespectful to the other teams I've coached," Maurice said. “The team here, this is the best team I’ve ever coached. It’s not really that close.”

Winners of the Stanley Cup last season, the Panthers will try for back-to-back titles starting Wednesday night when they visit Edmonton for Game 1 of a rematch. Florida beat the Oilers last year in seven games for Maurice's first Cup in a 30-year career.

“Oh, I'll never get tired of hearing that,” Maurice said.

It's a hilarious game of tug-of-war that Maurice and the Panthers players are engaged in these days. Players don't want to be showered in praise for making a third consecutive Cup final; the coach insists that it's all about them and that he just pushes a few buttons here and there.

The truth is that there's more than enough credit to go around.

“He keeps things light, but he expects us to work our hardest and he's very prepared and — I know I’ve said this before — he can get you up for a Tuesday night game against Columbus or whatever in the middle of the year and it 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.”

The speeches aren't filibusters, however. Maurice thinks it's critically important to have the ability to go into the locker room, say exactly what needs to be said and depart without saying anything more or anything less. He's not afraid to tell his players that they're playing poorly. He's not afraid to tell his players that he loves them, either.

He's also not afraid to make himself the butt of the joke. Florida was a 122-point, President's Trophy-winning team the season before Maurice arrived. The Panthers managed 92 points in Year 1 of his era.

“Coaching,” he quipped. The 30-point drop was in large part to the adjustment made by a stylistic change, and that change led them to the Cup final, but Maurice never misses a chance to make fun of how he turned a 122-point club into a 92-point club overnight.

Panthers defenseman Seth Jones came to Florida around the trade deadline this season. He had a lot of learning to do — new systems, new expectations, new teammates, all of that. He also had to learn how to get coached differently, which he quickly realized wasn't a bad thing.

“It’s different than what I’ve had," Jones said of Maurice's style. “I think he knows how to really take the temperature of the group and the situation of the group. And he can have a meeting where he’s very intense, calling guys out or calling the team out. But he’s also very good at throwing a joke in there, throwing a funny clip in there when we’re doing video. He's very smart. I think he understands what the team needs at any given time. I don’t think he gets too high or too low based on certain situations.”

That, the Panthers have learned, is critical.

Consider how the title series went last season. The Panthers won the first three games and were on the brink of the Cup. Then they lost Game 4. And Game 5. And Game 6. The brink of the Cup became the brink of a collapse, real fast.

Maurice started talking to his players about freedom and playing with that feeling. Game 7 was flawless. The Panthers won, and at the parade about a week later, Maurice ended his rain-soaked, highly profane remarks by throwing his arms into the air and yelling “Freedom!” at the top of his lungs to his team.

“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 and not to treat guys differently,” Tkachuk said. “He expects us all to work hard and treat each other with respect and everything, but he treats us all the exact same. He’s been a great coach and we're super lucky to have him here.”

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