RALEIGH, N.C. (Apr. 26) – During his two-year struggle as coach of the Maple Leafs, Paul Maurice did not have the opportunity to bust out a playoff beard. He’s getting that chance here in steamy North Carolina this spring… and it isn’t flattering. There are bald patches on one side; wisps of unruly hair on the other, and a moustache that can only be seen from the distance of a few centimeters. Behind that uneven facial patch, however, stands a man that deserves sizeable consideration for coach-of-the-year honors in the National Hockey League this season.
The Carolina Hurricanes appeared to be teetering on the brink of collapse when he took over his new/old club on Dec. 2. Though the ‘Canes had a decent record through 25 games [12-11-2], the club had lost four its previous five matches and was coming off a terribly flat performance on home-ice against Anaheim [4-1 loss]. General Manager Jim Rutherford obviously felt that his Stanley Cup-winning coach from 2006 – Peter Laviolette – was no longer getting the message across to his players, and Rutherford fired Laviolette the day after the Anaheim game. When he brought back Maurice, who had been dumped by the Leafs after missing the playoffs in consecutive years, it appeared to be a move borne of desperation and convenience.
After all, Maurice had been Rutherford’s coach in both Hartford and Carolina from Nov. 6, 1995 to Dec. 15, 2003 – the longest tenure in the NHL at the time. During that span, the Hurricanes won the 2002 Eastern Conference championship and played Detroit in the Stanley Cup final – bowing in five games. To begin the current season, Maurice sat at home in Toronto and wondered which path his career would follow. Having been fired by the Leafs last April at 41 years of age, he clearly was not prepared to give up on coaching, yet he likely could have slid back into the television role he handled so well with Rogers Sportsnet before John Ferguson hired him to coach the AHL Toronto Marlies in 2005. It seemed almost too easy for Rutherford to call on Dec. 2 and invite Maurice back to the Hurricanes. But, it turned out to be a brilliant move.
During the final four-plus months of the season, Maurice led Carolina to a 33-19-5 record – 17-5-2 down the stretch – and a sixth-place finish in the Eastern Conference. The Hurricanes are currently locked in a terrific opening-round playoff series with New Jersey and have to win tonight on home ice in Game 6 to force a deciding match at Newark on Tuesday. The ‘Canes generally out-performed the Devils in Game 5, but were stoned by Martin Brodeur, who stopped a career playoff-high 44 shots in a 1-0 victory. And, though he obviously had lots on his mind after the morning skate today, Maurice and I spent a few moments at the RBC Center talking about the present and the past.
Having been sacked last spring by a team that missed the playoffs again under his successor, Maurice could easily be pounding his chest, but he’s not the type. If he feels any form of vindication, it is shrouded by his humility… and his appreciation of the opportunity to coach, once again, in the NHL.
“This sounds simple, but winning is so much more fun than losing,” Paul smiled today. “We were able to come in here and get things going and win a bunch of games. That feels good. Losing really takes its toll. And, I guess that’s what everybody in our market here understands: It’s a challenge to make the playoffs every year on a budget. At the same time, when we get there, we think we’re good enough to win… and that’s because it’s happened here in recent years. This club went to the final [in 2002] then won a Cup [in 2006] with the same concept. So, it’s been a really enjoyable experience.”
And, that experience has restored Maurice’s coaching self-esteem. “Confidence is no different for a coach than a player,” he said. “When you lose a lot of games and have tough seasons like we did in Toronto, it’s good to get back, develop a positive feeling once again, and have your team respond.”
As he weighed his options last summer, Maurice wasn’t sure if or when he’d return to the NHL, but he did have the benefit of dual-perspective. “In all honesty, when you get outside the Toronto market, the game is viewed a little differently,” he said. “I did speak with enough general managers after getting fired by the Leafs that I was comfortable about [being re-hired] elsewhere. But, I didn’t ever expect it to be here. I mean, Jimmy [Rutherford] and I are friends, but he did fire me, so it’s not like we’re that close. I was quite surprised about this phone call and it’s turned out to be a great thing.”
Maurice had no difficulty expounding on the myriad differences between the Toronto and Carolina hockey markets. “Coaching outside of Toronto allows you to do some different things with your team, no question about it,” he said. “You can have a practice like we did [on Saturday] and nobody writes down your line combinations. You take a player out of the line-up and there aren’t 20 [reporters] in front of his stall for three straight days… then another 20 in front of the player that’s going into the line-up. So, it’s easier here [for a coach] to control the emotions in the locker room.
“And, something like that is so important for a team that went through what we did this season. I mean, we won an un-Godly amount of games down the stretch and still made the playoffs by only four points. The emotional swings that don’t happen here because of the [lack of] scrutiny make it a bit easier to go from day to day.”
But, that shouldn’t be construed, Maurice contends, as having a simpler job behind one bench NHL bench than another. For those that believe Maurice has re-discovered some sort of comfort zone here in Raleigh, he shakes his head.
“No, there’s no such thing for a coach at this level – regardless what city or environment you work in,” Paul insists. “Going through the Toronto experience was really good for me because it was something brand new; there are only three or four markets that have similar scrutiny. But, all that ends when the puck drops. That’s really when you earn your stripes as a coach in this league, and you need lots of help to go places.”
Unfortunately for Maurice, the Leafs went nowhere during his two-season tenure with the club, and he regrets it to this day. “Toronto may be a tough market, but if you win there, it’s a bigger boost than winning here, or in many other cities in the league. You can really get on a roll in Toronto because hockey is so big-time. And, the exposure shouldn’t always be looked upon as a negative. I remember talking to Ron Wilson a few years ago about the difficulty motivating some of the top players in San Jose because they didn’t have that pressure from the outside. So, it’s a completely different concept. But, the philosophies you believe in about how your team should play are not market driven. When the puck is dropped, there’s a job to be done no matter where you work.”
When asked to reflect on his two seasons with the Leafs, Maurice has no problem growing nostalgic. “I think you judge it partly by the stories you tell while sitting around the coaching office, and there are plenty of them” he smiled. “There were things and people that I really enjoyed about my time in Toronto. My family loved it there because of the passion for the game. It’s almost all positive when I think back, in part because I’m using the negatives now in Carolina. You know the things you have to watch for in your room; the pressures the players and the coaching staff deal with… I learned a different perspective in Toronto and it’s helping me here.
“Other memories are more from Paul Maurice the fan,” he continued. “Getting to know people like Johnny Bower and Red Kelly, and having dinner with them at times. There are so many great elements about Toronto and the history of the hockey market, and those are the things I’ll take with me wherever I work.”
Maurice isn’t about to throw his entire tenure with the Leafs under the bus. I have mentioned on several occasions that he did a spectacular job keeping the club in the playoff hunt during his first year [2006-07], in the face of massive injuries, and very average goaltending from Andrew Raycroft and Jean-Sebastien Aubin. Maurice still managed to squeeze 91 points out of that club, which missed the playoffs on the final day of the regular season when the Islanders knocked off New Jersey in a shootout.
“I appreciate more today what we did that year with the number of injuries and other factors,” Maurice says. “I remember Jim Rutherford calling me after the season – sometime in the summer [of 2007] – and saying, ‘Jeez, I think you guys did a great job and that’s going to be your undoing [in Toronto].’ We laughed at the time, but he brought that up after [I was fired] and he said he was right – that I was going to have raised expectations, and I did. And, it’s something that was difficult to manage the next year.”
Maurice didn’t start gang-busters with Carolina. Though the club got back on track after he arrived, it fell into a five-game tailspin heading towards his much-ballyhooed return to Toronto on Jan. 19. And, it was the game against the Leafs, Maurice believes, that turned around the Hurricanes’ season – goalie Cam Ward stopping 35 shots in a satisfying 2-0 victory at the Air Canada Centre.
“We had lost in Buffalo the game before and were at the point where the season was going one way or the other,” Maurice recalls. “Cam Ward came in and closed the door on the Leafs and then we went into Pittsburgh the next night and won 2-1. That’s when things turned for us. We’d had a lot of meetings; [Rutherford] spoke to the team, and everybody had their say. Were we going to pull together here or split apart? And that’s why the Toronto win was so important. Sometimes, when you get a victory in a big hockey market, it can carry you.”
When asked if his players wanted it more for him that night at the ACC, Maurice replied, “No, I don’t think I’d been back with [the Hurricanes] long enough for them to feel that way. And, to be honest, I think our team had just gone through two weeks of the coach being a real jerk. I was really on the guys, so there weren’t a lot of hugs going around between the coaches and the players at that point.
“At the end of the day, thought, it wasn’t about the coach. It was about the guys in the room… whether they were going to get things going. And, they did.”
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