Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice steps back into harsh glare of Toronto hockey in series vs. Leafs

Paul Maurice was driving home from the rink one day.

Then came an epiphany. In the pressure cooker of hockey's most intense media market, the then-head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs had just conducted a series of interviews and was concerned about his messaging.

Maurice decided, in that moment, enough was enough.

"That's it," he recalled telling himself. "I'm never, ever worrying about what I say again, ever. I'm just going to go try to tell the truth, get off and leave it. And if I mess it up, I mess it up.

"That's one of the things that I learned here."

Maurice is back here — in Toronto, some 15 years later — with the Florida Panthers in the second round of the playoffs following a stunning upset of the Presidents' Trophy-winning Boston Bruins.

The 56-year-old coached the Leafs for two seasons from 2006 to 2008 in his second NHL gig. Despite having already led the Hartford Whalers/Carolina Hurricanes for nearly a decade, Maurice eventually came to the realization he wasn't ready for the intense microscope and pressure.

"Really valuable to me," Maurice said Tuesday of his time in Toronto ahead of Game 1 against the Leafs. "So many lessons that I've used going forward. In truth, a lot of it has to do with dealing with the Canadian market. It's a completely different animal. You have to be aware of the impact of what you say in your room.

"I don't think that I was necessarily prepared for it."

Maurice certainly has figured things out since.

He would return to Carolina for a second stint, coach a year in Russia, and then spend parts of nine seasons with the Winnipeg Jets before resigning in December 2021.

He thought he was done with coaching until last June.

"A number comes up on my phone that I don't know," said