Texts from unexpected figures, especially former players, bring a smile as Paul Maurice reflects on his 2,000th NHL game milestone.
Florida Panthers Head Coach Paul Maurice is going to hit another major milestone.
On Tuesday night, Maurice will be behind the bench for his 2,000th National Hockey League game.
He will join the legendary Scotty Bowman, and only Scotty Bowman, as the lone individuals who have coached that many games in the NHL.
After Florida’s morning skate, Maurice spoke about some of the congratulatory messages he’d received.
“You’re always in the context of the game, where we’re at, we want to be better tonight than we were in Seattle, we didn’t like that game very much,” he began. “We all work in hockey, we get really, really busy so we lose track of each other, and then you start to get texts, and it’s always the ones that you don’t expect that put a smile on your face. The congratulations text from ex-players and people that I haven’t talked to in a long time. It’s like Christmas, when you run into some people and everybody is in a good mood, and you haven’t seen them for a long time, it’s nice. It’s a reason to connect with people that have been really, really important to you in your career.”
He wouldn’t elaborate on the content of the messages, as they were private and intended for his eyes only.
“I don’t know if I have the right to do that,” he said with a grin. “They sent me the text, they didn’t send it to everybody else, they didn’t post it on Instagram.”
Between former players, assistant coaches, executives, media members and friends, Maurice has surely touched the lives and hearts of many since he began his NHL coaching journey in Hartford back in 1995.
While the list of names in his received messages folder must have been quite an interesting one, especially to a hockey fan, Maurice did seem particularly touched by the fact that some of his former players reached out.
“Just some players who maybe at times your relationship was a little rougher at the start, and it got to a different place, and you’re never sure how they take it when they move on to another team,” he said. “I appreciate those, the guys that looked back and said, ‘Maybe that guy was right every once in a while.’”
Maurice has coached five different NHL teams during his 31 years in the league.
His 2,000 games are behind only Bowman’s 2,141 in terms of all-time coaching.
When looking at coaching wins, Maurice is third with 950. He trails Bowman’s 1,244 and Joel Quenneville, who has won 1,008.
Still only 59 years old, Maurice likely has plenty of runway ahead of him in terms of his career behind the bench.
His four seasons with the Panthers have been some of the most successful in his career, having led Florida to three consecutive Stanley Cup Final appearances and back-to-back championships in 2024 and 2025.
While this season has been a challenging one for Maurice and the Panthers due to the seemingly endless string of injuries suffered by key members of the team, the future in Florida remains incredibly bright, with the team built to continue contending for Stanley Cups well into the next decade.
For now, though, Maurice will likely take some solace in the memories he’s surely being flooded with when reading though his congratulatory text messages.
“It’s nice, I’ve enjoyed it,” he said. “It’s been unexpected, some of the texts. They’re really nice.”
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Photo caption: Dec 13, 2025; Dallas, Texas, USA; Florida Panthers head coach Paul Maurice looks on during the game at the American Airlines Center. (Jerome Miron-Imagn Images)