Standing behind NHL benches for nearly 30 years, Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice has heard players sling all types of trash talk on the ice. Or, as the practice is known in proper hockey parlance, chirping.

The verbal back-and-forth is viewed in the sport as an essential element of gamesmanship, an opportunity to gain a psychological edge through taunting, dissing, mocking, heckling or any other form of warbling that gets under an opponent’s skin. As the league has changed over time, though, Maurice believes the quality of its chirps have too and the practice has become a “lost art” in the NHL.

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“They used to be really, really funny,” the two-time Stanley Cup winner told The Athletic. “Some of the chirps (today) are so bad. They’re so sad.”

Chirping was once so widespread throughout the NHL that its use wasn’t restricted to players. Veteran Montreal Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher fondly recalled former coaches and even team trainers lobbing in-game smack earlier in his career. But today’s landscape looks — and sounds — much different.

As a rookie in the mid-2010s, Ottawa Senators forward Nick Cousins received a disparaging welcome to the league when enforcer Shawn Thornton approached him during a stoppage and chirped, “Next shift, just leave your stick on the bench because you don’t need it.” Over the decade-plus since, Cousins lamented, some players have become “too nice” to each other.

And he is far from alone in this observation.

“In the older era, it was a little more r