- Paul Maurice enters 2026-27 with 956 wins, third on the all-time coaching list
- Forty-four more make him the third coach in NHL history to reach 1,000
- Read below for the Scotty Bowman games record that is now inside a season and a half
Paul Maurice needs 44 wins to get into a club that has two members.
The Florida Panthers coach opens 2026-27 with 956 regular-season victories, third in NHL history. Getting to 1,000 would put him beside Scotty Bowman and Joel Quenneville, and nobody else has ever climbed that high. Matt Larkin of Daily Faceoff put him on the 2026-27 milestone watch Monday, and 44 wins is an ordinary season for a Florida roster with this much talent on it.
Bowman is still way out in front at 1,244. Quenneville, now running the Anaheim bench, sits at 1,012, so second place is also in range if both coaches stay employed through the spring.
The other record takes longer. Maurice has coached 2,013 NHL games, 127 behind Bowman’s 2,140, which works out to roughly a season and a half at his current pace.
He cleared the first half of that chase in March, when he became the second coach ever to work 2,000 games:
Maurice was asked that night whether the kid growing up in Sault Ste. Marie ever pictured any of this.
“Not a chance, that will never happen. I grew up watching the Montreal Canadiens and Scotty Bowman as a young coach. That’s a whole different world from a kid from the Soo.”
That came by way of Alex Baumgartner of Sports Illustrated, who was in the room in Sunrise:
The team cut a tribute video for him with messages from players and coaches around the league. Check out what the Panthers put on social media that night:
Maurice later found out there was a rougher edit of the same video that the arena scoreboard was never going to be allowed to play.
“I don’t think all the language would’ve made that one. You know, that Lundell guy dropping bombs all over this.”
Buffalo’s Lindy Ruff is right on his heels. Ruff sits at 950 wins, six behind Maurice, and the Sabres signed him to a two-year extension in May after ending their playoff drought. Both men can hit 1,000 this season.
Last year went sideways in South Florida. Aleksander Barkov wrecked his knee in training camp, the Panthers missed the playoffs, and a run of three straight Stanley Cup Final appearances and back-to-back titles came to a stop.
Brady Tkachuk is in the lineup now. If Florida wins at anything like its usual rate, Maurice crosses the 1,000-win line this season and spends next winter chasing down Bowman’s games record.
