"That makes you legendary in every league"

A three-peat completed, I asked Paul Maurice why Brad Ralph has had so much success with the Florida Everblades.

The Florida Everblades completed an unprecedented ECHL three-peat on Saturday, winning their third straight Kelly Cup with a 4-3 overtime victory in Game 5 against the Kansas City Mavericks.

Florida trailed 3-1 in the third period, but rallied to force overtime before Matt Wedman scored on a rush to close out the comeback.

For Everblades coach Brad Ralph, it’s another impressive line on his résumé.

In 14 seasons as a head coach spread across the SPHL, ECHL, and WHL Ralph has never missed the playoffs. In addition to his string of three championships, his teams have reached the Conference Finals or further an additional five times.

I went and watched Ralph’s team play in Game 4 on Friday, driving across the Everglades to watch the Everblades while I’m in Florida to cover the Stanley Cup Final.

ECHL hockey is naturally chaotic and broken, there are more mistakes and teams tend to be more disjointed. Florida is the exception, and structurally the Everblades operate at a higher level than the rest of the league — something they can back up with a trio of titles.

Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice is a big believer in Ralph. He’s told me as much before, and Maurice has a better view of how the Everblades are run from a day-to-day basis because his son, Jake Maurice, works in their communications department and does play-by-play for road games.

So on Saturday after morning skate in Fort Lauderdale, Maurice took a minute to talk about Ralph and how the ECHL coach actually helped the Panthers this season.

“He's smart, and I got a bunch of stories,” Maurice said. “The first thing that I would say is the level is not important. Winning a championship, it’s the best that you can be as a coach and he and (Everblades CEO) Craig Brush have done an incredible job building a model franchise down there. The idea that they’re on the cusp of three straight championships, I mean that makes you legendary in every league that you’re in.”

Maurice then proceeded to tell me a story about how the Panthers and Everblades run identical neutral zone defenses. For Maurice and the Panthers, implementing part of that defense was a struggle during the 2022-23 season.

For the 2023-24 season, Maurice invited Ralph to work at Panthers training camp, partially so he could help fix the Panthers neutral zone defense.

“It was kind of a tricky component to our neutral zone that used to take us a long time,” Maurice said. “It used to take us two to three months to get it in. And he said, ‘No we just do this,’ and it’s a simple one-line expression that tells the players what the read is and that was it. And my first reaction was, ‘And that works?’ And yeah, they only had to do it once in training camp and never had to talk about it again. So I stole it, absolutely flat-out stole it and it was the best neutral zone training camp we’ve ever had.”

Maurice said Ralph has a gift, the ability to take a highly-complex concept and explain it simply enough where players are able to execute from that directive.

The other thing that stands out to Maurice about Ralph is how the Everblades coach treats others, and the culture they’ve created in Estero.

“Jake came in last year and he’s basically an intern in some ways,” Maurice said. “Seriously one of the happiest days of my life, is they gave him a ring. That’s the culture of the organization. East Coast League teams aren’t generating the revenue that other teams are where they can do things for everybody. But it was such a huge deal at our house the day he brought his ring home. And I think that is the tell of the culture of the people. My son is basically an intern and he’s got a championship ring. He’ll cherish that … but that’s a story of the culture of what Brad and Craig Brush have built that program into what it is.”

I guess the biggest question remaining for Ralph, who is only 43 and already the ECHL record holder for playoff victories, is what it’ll take for another team to pry him out of Florida.