Panthers Land Paul Maurice in Head Coaching Sweepstakes

The Florida Panthers are expected to announce a new head coach in the coming hours. And that head coach will be former Winnipeg Jets bench boss Paul Maurice.

With reports surfacing early Wednesday morning that Jack Adams Award finalist Andrew Brunette will no longer hold the coaching duties heading into the 2022-23 offseason, attention has shifted to that of the currently unemployed Maurice.

Having walked out on the Jets back in December of 2021, Maurice has flown under the radar in terms of a future job placement. Many actually assumed that his time on the bench may have come to an end.

“If you lose some of that passion for the game, the love of the game, you can still be good, but you can’t be as good as you should be or you could be, and that’s how I feel I am,” Maurice said in his final media availability in Winnipeg. “There is a shelf life for what we do. The only way that shelf life gets extended is if you can win championships.”

Citing Winnipeg’s need for “a new voice” in charge, he left the Jets on his own terms, while associate Dave Lowry took over for the remainder of the 2021-22 season, to which Winnipeg finished outside the playoff picture.

“I couldn’t find the right grab on this team, and you could see it in the way we played,” Maurice said. “Yeah, they played hard, but so much of this game is emotion and drive, and as the head coach, you have to bring that. And I was [bringing it]. It was just a really small return for that energy, and that’s why coaches get changed.”

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At the time of his departure, the Jets were 13-11-5 and sitting in fifth place in the Western Conference’s Central Division. They went on end the season with a 39-32-11 record and their worst points percentage in the past six years.

No, things did not go well for the Jets last year. And having the coach that had been at the helm for the past nine seasons leave midway through the month of December really didn’t help matters. But according to Maurice, it was the right time to hand off the job.

“This is a good team. I’m a good coach, but sometimes when you take over a team it’s kind of like you’re starting at the bottom of a mountain and you’re pushing a rock up. You can only get it to certain place. That’s where I feel I’m at… I love these guys. I love this place. I know that it’s time, and that’s a good thing for the Jets. It’s also a really, really good thing for me.”

According to TSN’s Darren Dreger, Maurice will sign on with the Panthers on a three-year term.

Word of a coaching change i. Florida. Jack Adams finalist, Andrew Brunette is out as head coach. Paul Maurice is believed to be in the process of being hired.

— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) June 22, 2022

Florida, which finished atop the entire league with an eye-popping 58-18-6 record under Brunette, bowed out to state rival and reigning back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning in just four games of the second round this postseason.

With Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberdeau, Aaron Ekblad and McKenzie Weegar locked up for at least the 2022-23 season, Maurice will have a number of quality weapons at his disposal. Some depth questions do remain regarding the makeup of the remaining roster pieces in Florida.

Trade deadline acquisition Claude Giroux, former Jets blueliner Ben Chiarot and a number of other every day role players will need new contracts in Florida, or elsewhere as free agency opens in July.

With former head coach Joel Quenneville’s resignation very early into the 2021-22 season following the release of the Jenner & Block report surrounding the findings of sexual harassment, misconduct and abuse within the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks coaching and management staff, assistant coach Andrew Brunette was called into action as an interim head coach.

Brunette’s role was not expected to last as long as it did, nor reap the success that the team found under its new bench boss. The 48-year-old helped Florida to a 51-18-6 record through 75 games, while putting up a league-leading 306 goals and averaging 4.08 goals per game. The Panthers earned the club’s first Presidents’ Trophy and third division title. Florida was tops in goals scored (337), shots on goal (3,062), comeback wins (29), and set a league record with 13 overtime goals. The team also put up wins in 13-straight games, a 2021-22 NHL record.

If that kind of coaching does not earn a new contract, then what does?

Sure, Brunette was thrown into a position to which he had very capable players within arms’ reach, but it certainly involved some thinking and strategic coaching to deliver the record-setting, on-ice product that fans at FLA Live Arena actually showed up to watch night in and night out.

Maurice‘s hands will certainly be full in the Sunshine State.