FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Paul Maurice wants no part of the handshake line when the Eastern Conference Second Round between the Florida Panthers and Toronto Maple Leafs comes to an end.
And it has nothing to do with the Maple Leafs or coach Craig Berube. Rather, Maurice says that line should be reserved for the ones who battled on the ice over the course of 4-7 games.
“I think it should be on the players,” the Panthers coach said Saturday. “They’re the guys who win, lose, suffer, go through the pain, fight for their teammates, take hits, do the real work.
“We just drink coffee and swear. That’s basically what I do.”
Game 1 of the best-of-7 series will be played at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Monday (8 p.m. ET; CBC, SN, TVAS, ESPN).
Maurice, 58, has been coaching in the NHL since joining the Harford Whalers as an assistant for the 1995-96 season. He has friends all over the League and, after the Panthers eliminated the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 5 of the first round on Wednesday, Maurice had a few nice moments with the players who battled against his.
He even shared a few laughs with Lightning coach Jon Cooper at center ice following Florida’s 6-3 victory at Amalie Arena in Tampa.
But Maurice said he believes coaches should have their postgame moments away from the handshake line, reserving that great tradition for the players.
“When this whole thing started, and I don’t know when it changed, probably in the past 10 years, but the coaches would come off the bench, shake hands, and then they would leave,” Maurice said. “Somewhere, some coach wanted to get on camera, got down there, and got in the line. Now, if you don’t, you get roasted for it, being disrespectful. So, you’ve got to go and shake a bunch of sweaty dudes’ hands.
“But you wear a suit to the game; for those guys, the battle is real. The intensity is real, the meanness. You have two guys crossing paths who had been trying to do harm to each other for somewhere between four and seven games. That handshake is legitimate, and it’s real. And that’s a part of the great story of our game that they can do that.”
Maurice added he was “impressed” by what Lightning players said to him during the handshake line, complimenting Tampa Bay’s veteran players, many of whom were part of its back-to-back Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021.
The Panthers won the Stanley Cup last season and are in the middle of trying to defend their championship.
“A great amount of integrity in that,” Maurice said. “And, almost a lesson for me. That was pretty good, really good.”
