One has to wonder, in the grand scheme of things, how the politics between NHL General Managers and coaches play out. With the GM usually serving as the strategic architect and the coach doing the job of the tactical leader, aren’t confrontations sort of inevitable?

Well, not for the Florida Panthers, it seems, with coach Paul Maurice speaking highly of GM Bill Zito amidst Florida’s current domination of the Eastern Conference in the 2025 Playoffs. In a recent post game interview Paul Maurice was asked to elaborate on the time it took for him and GM Bill Zito to arrive on the same page about the Panther’s ‘game plan’ so to speak, because the team has witnessed so many big trades in the past few years.

For some context, Paul Maurice and Matthew Tkachuk both joined the Florida Panthers in 2022. Matthew Tkachuk from the Calgary Flames and Paul Maurice from the Winnipeg Jets. And Tkachuk hasn’t been the only big addition since Maurice’s joining. Brad Marchand, Nico Sturm, and Jesper Boqvist have all been fairly recent additions to the Panthers, but at that, fairly wise choices.

Considering the GM is the one who makes the final decisions about acquisitions and the coach is the one who has to figure out how to make it all work together, it was a smart choice to ask Paul Maurice in the aforementioned post-game interview about his time working with GM Bill Zito. “Well I have been lucky,” Maurice answered immediately, “You know, I’ve I’ve had worked with kind of three GMs long term all of them long term and Bill’s very similar. It’s actually their idea of how the team should play and then go pick a coach to fit that. So the whole, um like the Matthew Tkachuck trade was happening while I was being hired.” Maurice added, stressing that Tkachuk was acquired in July 2022 while Maurice was hired as coach just a month prior.

“He’s smart.” Paul Maurice continued about Bill’s insight into his involvement with the team, “Like he’s just way smarter than I am, And I’m fine with that I’m not trying to be funny. His brain works differently than mine. And he sees possibilities, I’m more risk-averse in some ways. Um, and he is, I think we can make that deal, I think this would he very positive, very optimistic person and that just kind of um you feel it, You feel it every day. He’s in our coach’s office every single day and he pulls up a chair and he hangs out with us. He’s kind of one of the group and he’s completely comfortable firing out any, as he would say, crazy idea and some of them are, but a lot of them are, just you hadn’t thought about like that before.” And Bill Zito’s ideas, crazy or not, are not going unnoticed, he’s just come up as a finalist for the Jim Gregory GM of the Year award.

Paul Maurice sings Bill Zito’s praises as he is simultaneously listed as a finalist for the Jim Gregory GM of the Year award

Taking into consideration everything that coach Paul Maurice said, it only makes sense that Florida’s Bill Zito has been named a finalist for the Jim Gregory GM of the Year award again, for the fourth time in the five seasons that he has served as the GM for this team. Zito was hired in 2020 and since then Florida has made the playoffs every year and has advanced to the finals in 2023 and 2024, the latter of which they won! They’re not looking too far off from the same this year too.

The Jim Gregory GM of the Year award was renamed in honor of the former Toronto Maple Leafs manager in 2019. The award is given to a selected manager chosen by a 42-member panel including all 32 NHL managers, 5 NHL executives and 5 media executives. It only makes sense that Bill Zito’s efforts are recognized sooner rather than later as he took a team that hadn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1996 and turned them into a dominating force, all courtesy of his strategic mastery.

As Paul Maurice said, Bill Zito is just “smart” and this has served the Panthers in both the long and the short term, the benefits of which we are seeing being reaped in real time! In fact, the latest acquisition, i.e, Brad Marchand may be what’s gotten Bill Zito this far in the running for GM of the year this year and could be what cinches him the title, fourth times the charm, right?