The Florida Panthers advanced to the Stanley Cup Final for the third straight year when they defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 5-3 in Game 5 on Wednesday night.
When the two teams jumped off their benches to shake hands, head coaches Paul Maurice and Rod Brind’Amour had an extended, animated conversation and then departed the ice.
Hockey Twitter wondered if there was any bad blood, especially given Brind’Amour’s presence. However, when ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski questioned Maurice about the interaction postgame, the veteran bench boss gave a thoughtful response back.
“I don’t believe that the coaches should shake players’ hands at the end,” Maurice said. “There’s this long list of people in suits and tracksuits. I mean, we had like 400 people on the ice. They’re all really important to our group, but not one of them was in the game. There’s something, for me, visually, with the camera on of just the men who played, blocked shots, who fought for each other.
“It’s the end of one season. It’s excitement for the other. The last thing that a player on the Carolina Hurricanes deserves is 50 more guys in suits – they have no idea who they are, and that’s not a negative. There should be something really kind of beautiful about just the camera on those men who played shaking hands. So we should respect that.”
Maurice has reportedly stood by his assertion that coaches shouldn’t be involved in the practice the whole postseason, convincing Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube to skip out on the practice after their second round elimination as well. Berube, like Brind’Amour, was a long-time player in the NHL, perhaps making both men more willing to go along with Maurice’s request.
The 2024 Stanley Cup champion bench boss added he was unsure when the handshakes expanded to include coaches, but believes someone in the past likely initiated the change to gain TV exposure.
“I don’t know when it changed, but I don’t think it’s right,” Maurice said. “I think there’s a really beautiful part of our game when just the players shake hands at the end. When you think of all the great competitions on the ice, hard, going after each other, and yet they shake hands like that. That’s special. They’re not sending Christmas cards to each other. It was just nasty out there.
“So I appreciate the risk that [Brind’Amour] took because he’s concerned that somebody here (in the media) is going to be upset that he didn’t shake our players’ hands. I asked him not to. And he understood it. So that’s what happened.”
The defending champion Panthers and Maurice have seen quite a few handshake lines over their past three playoff runs, as all three will end with an appearance in the Stanley Cup Final. They completed the gentleman’s sweep of Carolina with a 5-3 victory on the road inside the Hurricanes’ Lenovo Center.
Florida is only the ninth franchise in NHL history to make it to the Cup Final three years in a row. They join their in-state rivals, the Tampa Bay Lightning (2020, 2021, 2022), as the only teams to achieve the feat in the last 40 years.
The Panthers will play either the Edmonton Oilers or the Dallas Stars in the championship round. Edmonton currently leads the Western Conference Final series three games to one.
