Paul Maurice said when you take command of a team as a head coach it feels as if you are pushing a boulder up a mountain.
“And (sometimes) you can only get it to a certain point – that’s where I am today,… Maurice said.
Leave it to Maurice, in his ninth season with the Winnipeg Jets, to transform an NHL coaching change into a graceful act.
Maurice shocked the hockey world today by announcing he was resigning. He was second behind Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper in terms of seniority with his current NHL team
“If you allow me some arrogance, I’m better positioned than anyone to know they need a new voice,… Maurice said.
The Jets are 13-10-5 on the season, 4-5-1 in their last 10 and sitting in fifth place in the Central Division. They expected to be higher in the standings. But management wasn’t going to fire Maurice. He has talked to them about quitting for weeks and they were hoping he would stay.
But the second part of Maurice’s decision process was that he has lost his zest for his work. He noticed it when the team was competing in the COVID bubble. He didn’t enjoy his work anymore. Maurice hoped that those feelings would go away when the NHL returned to something close to normalcy. But that hasn’t happened.
The joy wasn’t there. And the results weren’t to his liking as well. He believes the Jets are a good team and they needed someone to help them get to the next level.
It wasn’t going to be him.
Maurice said the team didn’t quit on him, but he knew they needed someone else. “They need somebody to help them get to that next place,… Maurice said. “It doesn’t need to be a necessarily more experienced, more talented guy. It needs to be a different voice. It’s the right time for it. And I know that."
In most cases, you have to push employees out the door when their time is up. With Maurice, he knew his time was up before anyone else. And he decided to walk out the door on his own terms.
I’ve written about Paul Maurice for a long time, and none of this is surprising. He has always been confident, clever and classy. He has old school values and a modern approach. Maurice is a proud competitor. He’s not the kind of person who stays in a job for the money. He said he felt good about his decision, relieved he doesn’t have games to coach. He was 43 when he became the youngest person to coach 1,000 NHL games. He’s 54 now.
He went out praising the Jets. You would expect nothing less from Maurice.
“I came up here on a four-month contract," Maurice said. "And fell in love with all of it. Ownership. Management. Players. Staff. The city. The fans. The snow. The cold. And found a home. Wonderful place. And I love this place. I love this team."
Dave Lowry is taking over on an interim basis and Maurice is rooting for his success.
“If you lose some the passion,… Maurice said, “you can ‘t be as good as you should be or could be.…