Paul Maurice Reaches 500 Wins

[Captain Mountain]

Underrated coach. When you look at some of the rosters he's had to work with, he's been great. He's done a great job for the Jets.

 

[Brooklanders*]

Maurice has coached forever but its still a great accomplishment. Congrats.

 

[Jeti]

Maurice is an infinitely better coach than Noel. Can't even assign a number there. He designed a system around the strengths of the roster and seems like a very effective communicator.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Maurice is blessed that he became the coach of the Whalers at the age of 28 (for funsies - 7 players on the 1995-1996 Hartford roster were older than he was) and was the youngest head coach in NHL history. It's taken him 1,163 games to reach the 500 win mark, or a winning percentage of 0.430. That's the lowest win percentage of any of the 20 coaches who's reached the 500 win mark. Also, while he may be the 2nd youngest, it's taken him 17 seasons to get there - that averages out to about 29 wins per season - also the lowest of any coach to have won 500 or more games. Exalting him for competency isn't exactly warranted here, IMO.

No coach could have won with those rosters he had. Not to mention, the best way to learn how to coach is to be a coach. I think there's a decent chance he's looked at as one of the top coaches in the league in a few years and for the remainder of his career.