Paul Maurice: Florida Panthers to Open Season, Get Stanley Cup Rings, Raise Championship Banner
the last few games at Lundy. Both out there good to go. All good to go. And then looking obviously before we get to the season, tonight’s uh event, there’s a lot of things you guys celebrate. You obviously have par day that. Where does the ring kind of fit into that in your mind since you already been through it once? Uh it’s a Christmas day kind of thing because we have no insight into what it’s going to look like. There’s no leaked ideas. Nobody’s seen a picture. They do a really good job of keeping it private and it’s a great little individual keepsake for everybody. So, it’s surprised me last year how much I ended up in enjoying the experience. Like it was a how impact impactful it was for me. So, I’m looking forward to tonight. Coach, just talking to Seth Jones and you said obviously the goal this season is not just to defend the cup but to really play hard for Barov Matthew and just how ificant. Do you feel that part of the equation is especially going into opening night? Usually you got to get into the season before you find your adversity. Find what will define you and and we have that right in front of us from the start learning how to win hockey games without elite players in your lineup. There’s a a danger in it for sure because it’s not he’s out for a month. Um, so we we we are in kind of full playoff mode with that idea right from the start to humble yourself to the point you understand that it’s going to be a real challenge in the grind. Um, but there’s also a potential awesomeness to it. Can you win without your best players? And if you can, then you you’re a little bit more bulletproof than you were before. It’s not easy to do the best players and they’re paid what they’re paid for a reason. Um they do so much for your team, for your franchise. He’s here. He’s been here every day. He’s been in the meetings. He’ll be around. So, we’ll get to keep his personality, his leadership here, but we’ll miss him on the ice. Seth Jones had some really good stretches in Chicago, some rougher stretches, but he seems to step right in here and succeed. What is it about the fit that’s worked there? Well, you know what? It it it took him a stretch. Uh I would say when he first came in and part because we had we were pretty sure that he was going to play with Niko Mikola. That’s how we had but Aaron Eckplad was out. So he played with so he played with I think at one point everybody in a short and then as soon as Aaron comes back everybody gets in pairs. He took off the playoff. There is a learning curve and this isn’t just the Florida Panthers. Every team has their own systems, their own style of play, but he he I he adapted I I thought it would take a year and and I based that on I thought it took Aaron Ecklad who’s was similar, very high pick, very talented player. It almost took him the first year before he adapted what he had done before to what we were trying to do. Seth did it much quicker. How would you assess when you look back at it? I know last year that there was a clear emphasis on It was a parade and a cup day was a ring and all that stuff and it’s over. How did that process go about as easily as you would have hoped as far as put? It it did. Um and it’s a mental thing where but what I I what I didn’t factor in that idea was kind of like all right once we come back to train camp it’s over. We never talk about it except we got the ring ceremony and then we got to drop off a ring at the Hall of Fame and then there’s a whole bunch of great things to do but there’s a whole bunch of things kind of insert themselves into your season that make that idea kind of foolish. You you just want to So how would we deal with it? There is understandably conversations about the idea of winning three in a row with three repeat but we can’t not have those conversations. So when we talk about it when we we answer it, but it’s not the driver of this season, right? Each we’ve we’ve put those the first year is completely different than the second year and this year will be completely different again and we’re going to have a we know what our adversity is or we hope that’s the extent of our adversity this year. Um so that’s our focus right there and it’ll it will be its own human, right? It’s it’s as different as each one of your kids, right? this is a completely different animal. So dealing with that and not living in the past is very important. But also we we want to make sure that we’re not mandating that. It’s okay to enjoy tonight and it’s okay when we have to do other things that bring us back. We’re just not having a reunion every day that we come to the rink. Well, in your experience of decades, obviously you’ve had key players out in previous situations, uh, how can they be most helpful being where they are, uh, having to recover multiple months? Do you want them around the team? Do you want them Yeah. hanging out with players? How much of it? And so on. It’s player specific. It also has to do with the number of injuries you have. when you get into seven, eight, nine guys, you can’t have them at the rink because they just eat up too many of your resources in the morning because you got 20 guys here, right? So, they got to come in early and get all their treatment done before the healthy team comes in and they need all that that focus. So, there’s a bunch of different things that go into how you deal with an injury. And then anybody that that has a long-term injury, they need the players. They need it to be around the players. um just emotionally I I found I think they that a lot of times these guys go through and I’m not a doctor but they go through a depression especially if it’s long term they they’ve all been in the league like the rehab is no fun for any of these in it’s painful and long and you’re not playing hockey so they go through that but where they’re helpful is in all the small conversations they have when they’re around. That’s why we will want Barkov, uh, Kachchuck and Nosk in the meetings that we have and in the room and around the players and at lunch because they’re going to have a conversation with one player who’s struggling, right? They’re our leaders, right? Those guys and and and Thomas knows what he went through last year being healthy, scratched, coming back, flipping one in the stands, being on the ice for the, you know, the last minute. He’s got a lot of stories to tell that he can help the new guys come in or the young players. We want them around. We want them to share and telling stories and we’re feeding them. So, they got to earn it a little bit. I’m going to ask you about because you just said that about being nice for the last minute. Was that something you had in your pocket the whole game that night? Were you hoping that had it turned out the way it did you would reward that one? I mean, the idea of it came from a conversation. I’m not sure how many whether it was last year or the year before, but it would have had to have been last year. The start of that conversation is as the clock is ticking down in the first year, right? Your eyes are kind of going from the full play. You know, they’re crossing at 30. And as I’m doing this, it’s Barkov. He’s on the bench. He’s But we had short shifted, right? like we were just on and off the ice and it just so happened nothing wrong with Sam Bennett being on the ice at all. Turned out pretty good. But uh so we started talking about the rotation at the end of the games and then you’re kind of daydreaming. Well, what if you ever got into one of those where you had a pretty good idea what was going to happen. So would you put five most senior guys possibly? And then it just kind of it just kind of disappeared. And that one then you get a so I think TV they scored me at 51 TV timeout 543 but at that point I got a pretty good handle that we could probably shut this thing down. Um and then you’re kind of looking down the bench going what about these guys? Look what they did. And you think about then you you kind of you get a flash of they should be on the ice. So that’s the dream. I think it’s always overtime winner and you you scored it in your dream. So you’re on the ice throwing your helmet off and throwing all your gear off. Next would be but you’re almost always on the ice. I don’t think anybody thinks about they win it. They’re sitting on the bench. So I just thought that they they should get that those guys and Grizzy, they do a lot of the hard heavy lifting, right? That’s not an easy life. So they should they should get that. On the flip side of Parkov being on the bench in that situation, do you sometimes think of McDavid by himself in front of the net just I think I think he I think it wasn’t just him. I think Bard was sitting in the higher slot while in for a penny in for a pound. If we’re going into the corner, we might as well put all five there, right? We’re we’re pretty good at it. But if you watch like just Sam Reinard’s positioning on that, he had a pretty at that point in time, he’s probably right. Sam sits there. He thinks he can knock anything down that comes out of that hole. Yeah. I don’t know. I was holding my breath at that point, so I don’t really remember much of that. Talk about turning the page. Yeah. Coach you to get back into the the regular season grind of playing Chicago tomorrow and then getting ready for Philadelphia on Thursday and then you got to Ottawa on Saturday. Like you’re back in it more this year than last year, George. uh last year. Not that I didn’t want to get back into it, but you’re looking ahead going, you know, we’re reasonably healthy. Um we got a pretty good team. This is But everybody, it seemed like everybody was a little bit tired. By the time we got out of training camp and we were going to Finland in the next month, it looked like a bigger hill. Got a little more rest and like the coaches got work to do this year. like the we got to get to work. We’re not rolling in with a full healthy team where we think we’re a pretty good team and and you manage the year as much as you coach sometimes. We’re a little tired here. I’ll lay off them. We’ll push them a little harder here. Here we got to get to work every day and we’re going in even. It’s cliche because we won last year and I don’t it’d be full of to say we’re in a pretty good team. We had a good team but we’re missing key pieces for a long time. So, we’re going to have to deal with some things we haven’t had to deal with maybe emotionally for maybe two or three years. You go back to that anything that you go back to that first four months, our first year. We had to get some details right. There were some unkind words said. It’ll be handled differently this year because now we have a relationship and they know what I’m talking about. But, we’re going to have to work our butts off. Are you keeping the like last year you had the notes like this is what Yeah, it’s up on the board. Yeah, doing that again. Yeah, it won’t be as it won’t be. That might be more out of habit. It’s not a It’s just a habit. I I like it and I use it. But because of the injuries we have, we got a whole different set of problems and a whole style doesn’t change. Well, I’m using the wrong word. We got a completely different set of problems and we have new challenges that we haven’t faced yet. So, we got to go to work. We got to be on. There’s always going to be some resentment toward a team that wins a bunch of championships, but you guys seem to have this almost villainous reputation around other fan. Do you you revel in that? Do these guys like that? Do you feel that at all? I think the players might give you a different answer than I do. I I don’t know. Maybe they I get to wear a suit, right? So, I never really have to answer for anything I say or do. Occasionally, I got to answer for some stupid I say, but even with that, like it’s not like it lives forever too often. I think the league is in the healthiest place that I’ve ever seen it. I mean, you can play the wing and get a great big contract here in the league. Like, the league’s pretty good for the players. There’s better stories. I think it’s part of a narrative that maybe serves the purpose. And when I say of the league, I don’t mean the NHL offices. I just it’s it’s a good story. Everybody needs a villain. We get out hit in most games that we play. I got more firemen than arsonists. I’m not saying I don’t have an arsonist or two, but I got more firemen.
Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice meets the media after his team’s practice in Fort Lauderdale on Monday, Oct. 6, 2025.
Florida opens the season Tuesday against the Blackhawks where they will raise their 2025 Stanley Cup banner.
The Panthers will get their Cup rings later on Monday in Fort Lauderdale.
The Panthers Have Done It Again, Repeat as Cup Champs: https://floridahockeynow.com/florida-panthers-repeat-stanley-cup-champions-2025/
How Brad Marchand Joined the Florida Panthers: https://floridahockeynow.com/brad-marchand-joins-florida-panthers-how-it-happened-nhl-trade-bruins/
2024 Stanley Cup Champions Honored at the White House: https://floridahockeynow.com/stanley-cup-champion-florida-panthers-honored-at-white-house/
Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning Bringing Hockey Outdoors – In Florida: https://floridahockeynow.com/nhl-outdoor-hockey-miami-tampa-florida-panthers-lightning/
The Florida Panthers Get Their Rings. They’re Spectacular: https://floridahockeynow.com/florida-panthers-get-stanley-cup-championship-rings-theyre-spectacular/
The Florida Panthers Are Stanley Cup Champions: https://floridahockeynow.com/can-you-believe-it-florida-panthers-are-stanley-cup-champs/
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Video Courtesy Florida Panthers / Panther Vision
4 comments
2 time Stanley cup champions. Can someone please spring for a microphone for the reporters? So you can hear the question that would be fantastic, go panthers!
❤
It’s here. Hockey is finally back.
Go Panthers.
why dont they do something so we can hear the questions…. come on panthers!!