Maurice to coach 1,800th NHL game when Panthers face Lightning. And more milestones on horizon
Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice is set for the next big milestone of his longstanding NHL coaching career.
Maurice, in his 26th NHL season and second in Florida, will coach his 1,800th career NHL game on Wednesday when the Panthers face the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena.
This will make him just the third coach in NHL history with that many games behind the bench, joining Scotty Bowman (2,141) and Barry Trotz (1,812) — the latter of whom Maurice is slated to pass for second-most games coached all time on Jan. 24 when Florida hosts the Arizona Coyotes.
Maurice’s tenure as an NHL head coach began in the 1995-96 season with the Hartford Whalers, which eventually relocated to North Carolina and became the Carolina Hurricanes, and has included stops with the Toronto Maple Leafs, a second stint with the Hurricanes, the Winnipeg Jets and now Florida, where he led the Panthers to the Stanley Cup Final in his first season.
He had a two-year stint coaching in the American Hockey League and one year Russia’s Kontinental Hockey League mixed in as well.
More Florida Panthers milestones on the horizon
▪ Reinhart enters Florida’s game against the Lightning with a team-leading 19 goals through 33 games played. If he scores at least one goal in over the next two games — either Wednesday against the Lightning or Friday against the New York Rangers — he will be the fifth player in franchise history to hit the 20-goal mark through his first 35 games played of a season. The others: Pavel Bure (31 goals in the 1999-2000 season), Aleksander Barkov (22 goals in 2021-22 season), Sam Bennett (21 goals in 2021-22 season) and Scott Mellanby (20 goals in 1995-96 season).
Reinhart is on pace for 47 goals, 52 assists and 99 points this season, all of which would shatter his single-season career highs (33 goals, 49 assists, 82 points set in the 2021-22 season).
▪ Barkov enters Wednesday with 409 assists. That’s six shy of the franchise record, currently 415 held by Jonathan Huberdeau.
▪ Matthew Tkachuk, who has scored just two goals over his past 20 games, is three goals away from 200 for his NHL career.
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