Cup win 'not what I thought it would be. It's so much better': Maurice

Sault Ste. Marie's Paul Maurice is a Stanley Cup champion.

Maurice and his Florida Panthers beat the Edmonton Oilers 2-1 in game 7 of the Stanley Cup final on Monday night to capture hockey's biggest prize.

The Panthers win comes after the Oilers forced a seventh and deciding game by winning three-straight contests to push the series to the limit.

Speaking to Sportsnet following the victory, Maurice said winning the Cup was "not what I thought it would be."

"It's so much better," the Sault product added. 

Maurice also mentioned his family in the Sault and southern Ontario who "suffered through 30 years of losing and making excuses."

"Dad, your name is going up with your heroes," he added. "Beliveau, Richard, Howe, Lindsay, Maurice."

The game was the fifth game seven in Maurice's coaching career.and the 57-year-old is unbeaten in those games.

"Sevens are a completely unique animal," Maurice said in media availability prior to Monday's game. "I don't think it relates in terms of pressure to anything because there is no tomorrow. It's a completely different feel. We've been immersed in the weight of it for a week. We've been through two or three games, so there's not a new experience in this other than it's also a game seven. Both teams come out as flat out as fast as they possibly can."

In addition to Maurice and Edmonton Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse, who was a captain of the Soo Greyhounds, there were additional Sault ties on both side in Monday's seventh game.

On the Edmonton coaching staff is former Oilers, and one-time Greyhounds, defenceman Paul Coffey. In addition to serving as an assistant coach on the staff of Kris Knoblauch, Coffey also serves as a special advisor to the owner and chairman of the Oilers.

On the Panthers roster is another former Greyhound in forward Nick Cousins.

Cousins didn't play in Monday's seventh game, coming out of the lineup for another veteran forward in Kyle Okposo.

Maurice said prior to the game that the decision to pull Cousins out of the lineup was "solely hockey based, but a difficult thing to do to a man to take a game seven from him."

"I just felt that, looking back at the three previous games our team played, I liked the three games that Kyle has played, slightly better than Nick's," Maurice added. "There's other options with Kyle in terms of how we come off the bench."

Maurice added that telling Cousins he wasn't playing "was a hard thing to do."

Okposo played in the opening five games of the series for the Panthers before Cousins stepped into the lineup in his place for game six.

Monday's game was just the third time a game seven had been forced after a team took a 3-0 lead in the series. In 1945, the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings in game seven after the Red Wings came back from being down 3-0. That series was three years after the Maples Leafs came back from a 3-0 deficit to become the only team to win a Stanley Cup title after being down 3-0.