Florida Panthers head coach reacts to winning Stanley Cup: “That’s not getting old”

Stanley Cup winning head coach Paul Maurice to take your question that’s not getting old I bet not as many times as you want I bet not uh please raise your hand and wait for the microphone we have mic holders both sides of the room we’ll start left side third row Frank Paul you’ve waited a long time for a night like this yeah curious if as the series started to turn at any point did you say man what’s it going to take to get my hands on this thing no I I didn’t think like that I uh but I’m not sitting here Frank say we knew it right like when it’s going sideways on you I loved our game five that’s probably the reason I had kind of hoped that we would we would be able to play close to that game at home and in truth at the end game five and Poss game two were our two best games and we lost that game but if you watch a lot of hockey and you study it you know how you played and if if we had played that game tonight and lost I don’t want to say I would be at peace with it I wanted tonight more than any other game to look a certain way I wanted to stand behind the bench and watch the first period because we hadn’t been very good in the first period under the most pressure having lost three in a roll your dream slipping out the door wanted it to look a certain way that the players play a certain way that they had belief and and and courage and the word that we used over the last three days was the freedom to play the game and I don’t mean I had the handcuffs on them I mean if it’s on your stick and it’s on you you’re playing the game you’re not you’re not banging it out right except for the entire third period which is we iced it 400 times but that’s what I wanted so I never thought what’s it going to take to get your hand like what do I got to do cuz I didn’t know it then and I didn’t know it when I got asked the question at the start of all this and I said I need one right and I got to win a Stanley Cup there’s a whole bunch of things you don’t know until you get there you don’t win a Stanley Cup I didn’t win the Stanley Cup toight I got to share it and that is a completely different idea not not that I thought this was all about me I certainly didn’t I mean you replace me tomorrow that’s a good hockey team were but that’s what I learned it you don’t win a Stanley Cup you share it you get a you get to share it left side first row Mike they always say the cup is really heavy that first time you lift it over your head did it feel that way or was it like a feather like way heavier than I thought it was going to be but in I haven’t been in the gym in a long time so there was a slight moment when I’m hanging on I’m going am I gonna be able to get this thing over my shoulders right because they’re all beat up anyway it was heavier than I thought way heavier that same Ro Ryan uh hey Paul staning Cup champion um I like that thank you that’s do Aaron eblad is a player that’s been with the Panthers almost as long as anybody else haven’t talked about him too much but clearly an important member of the team what does he mean to the Panthers okay so take a look at the and I’m going to say maturation of his game so I think it the year prior to and I got nothing to do with that so when I say this this isn’t me saying look what I did with Aon neck blood because what I did is I took them from a high point producing very expensive defenseman and just ground the points right out of him right that’s what I did for him but you find you know sometimes you find a different way so he’s a power play guy he puts up big numbers on a highs scoring team and then in some ways he has to accept a change and it’s not and it wasn’t a problem formed to do it he came off the top on the power play and he went to the flank and then he came off the flank and then I think what happened is he you know broke his foot sublu his shoulder twice had an oblique tear and played through it and in order to play the game he was so broken and beat up he had to play this kind of grinding bang it out defend defend defend he also lost McKenzie weager who was part that kind of offensive game and now he’s playing with Gus forsling and we’re running him against the other teams plus W I’ll just defend and then he turns out he’s really really good at it and I think he truly truly embraced it and part of it is he’s not as young man anymore he’s not old but he’s not in 23 looking for the next contract he’s got all he needs just wants to win but he he had a major change in his style of play in his career and now he owns that so he gets to play a lot longer just like that back to Frank left side third row if I could ask a followup we we talked to you uh a little bit earlier in the series and you talked about you know what it was like to first kind of get your eyes on the Stanley Cup in the Sue and and now you know you just talked about maybe coaches have different dreams than players in terms of what you wanted this game to look like yeah did you see it and was this everything that you wanted it to be I was good with the result you’re not going to believe this and I don’t even know if it’s 100 it’s not true but a piece of me believes this I was good after the first period with with whatever the result was going to be I got a small little job to do here the the the lowest minute guy on that team is 10 times as important as I’m not trying to be overly humble I got a I got a piece of this know in my piece of this we were good or I didn’t screw it up right because you lose and you now and it’s not just you so I’ll tell you a story I get to the rink really early in the morning so when I come in yesterday morning we got this big Bank of six TVs and one of them has a network on it I want and the banner is and I’m not you if the Florida Panthers loose is this the biggest collapse in sports history that damn thing is sitting on the TV and you know you’re waiting for it like roll it people let’s move it 15 minutes so I’m waiting by the door for my video guy to come in and say so we have these Banks it’s a new rink right we have all over get that Network off our TV cuz I’m sitting there going and I don’t like it and I’m 57 but what happens if you’re 25 and you’re going I got to live 50 more years as being a part of the biggest collapse in sports history so from from the loss to the drop of the puck something has to change and something has has to get better and that would be where I think I worked once the puck dropped tonight I was down working and I liked our first so I was good I was good with it I was at peace with I wanted to win but we weren’t scrambling around in the first trying to find our game and I I know you’re a humble guy but did you feel at all the weight of a bunch of people in the hockey world pulling in your direction over the last few weeks all of my close friends with the exception of deor know not to text me anytime around game times or if I’m grumpy so you sent me some foreing tips which I appreciate Pete um yeah so I have good friends I have good friends in the media we’ve crossed paths we kind of work for the same group for a while and I think this is awful it’s a little bit why that Sarah mlin commercials are good right like we resonate with suffering animal and I think they’ve seen me on TV for 30 years and they’re kind of going can you give this guy a Stanley Cup cuz this is painful and pitiful to watch I don’t want to see this man go through this anymore I think as as humans we kind of I got adopted by the Florida Panthers tonight right side second row Patrick Paul um obviously for players uh being a good scorer being a good passer means nothing if you don’t win a Stanley Cup what does it mean to you to see these players this group be finally rewarded with a cup and have this stamp next to their name so in our small little world down here um these guys had to work really really hard which makes no sense because there isn’t a Stanley Cup champion that didn’t right we’re all saying the exact same thing this was so hard this group was different from the time I called him two years ago I kept getting off the phone going these guys are different and I think that you people would appreciate it truly appreciate it cuz let’s just say I’m an ass and you got to deal with me because I’m in Pro Sports and I’m the coach and my guys aren’t like that to deal with they aren they aren’t like that for me to deal with I told Nick cousins he wasn’t playing tonight game seven I took that from him in that same Ro did he truly handled that way better than I thought and I was expecting and and because we we Nick Nick’s a fiery man and we get and every once in a while we get rolling on each other but man he handled it cuz he loves his brothers he loved those guys so the coach is a jerk and uh he’s right about that but he loves his brothers that was pretty good right side second R Greg just wanted to get your perspective on like the last of that game and the emotions you’re feeling on the bench as you see them try to you know freeze the puck in the corner and right so we talk about different things over the course of the years just kind of almost prep time and one of them is if we do this right mentally you get into this and I would always say game seven we talk about game seven all the time and there’s 8 minutes left on the clock if we do this right we want the clock to slow down not speed up right if if you if you can realize that I don’t know what the percentage of me or any of us getting into it a game seven final certainly after you’ve lost the last three it’s never ever happening again and if you can’t bite into that and that’s not easy to do cuz you’re you know your I’ll say heart is in your throat and right I didn’t see the clock very much I need to see the clock as the head coach cuz it’s match ups and you’re starting to do the math 435 he’s got one rotation mcdavid’s on the ace he’s coming with the other two and then he’s coming back so the goal tender’s coming at 320 whatever and then I looked up and was a minute 23 but it was easy because I was only playing two lines at that point there were six guys and I just you guys kept slapping Jamie make sure they’re up make sure they’re up make sure they’re up and then when the puck got to the corner I’m not sure what time but I I got a Vibe on what it is but I won’t look at the clock and everybody he’s scrum in the corner and I’m going to scream at Sam Reinhardt cuz this guy s right over in front of our net but he isn’t going to hear me and then I just waited for sane and Jamie I just kind of stayed stared there and took it I wasn’t taking it all in I was holding my freaking breath and then San LEF put me in a headlock and he’s a bear I we had a pretty good chance then when he was hugging me on the bench right side fourth row coach first congratulations um obviously after the game five last year we talked about how proud you were of that team last year how is the pride different this time around this different that’s the starting point of hard and what that team went through like that thing started in in January right like we’re out of the playoffs and we’re out by nine points so the grind is on and then you beat a team like Boston so you give everything you possibly have but you’re probably not good enough not in terms of your character your Hur you compete all the things that we say you need to do to win but like how the hell really would I know I’ve never one so it’s all on faith right you go as hard as you can you give everything you have but you never actually won so you’re just grinding but that commitment then and in truth I had an idea we had a chance in training camp this year was I I ran the exact same camp that I ran last year and we measure everything and they worked harder on their own I these guys are serious I was telling really funny jokes for about three months and they weren’t laughing

Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice speaks to the media following the team’s 2-1 win in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

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