The Toronto Maple Leafs have hired two coaches to head coach Sheldon Keefe ’s staff: former Ottawa Senators and Tampa Bay Lightning head coach Guy Boucher, and former St. Louis Blues assistant coach Mike Van Ryn.
In Boucher, the Maple Leafs have added a coach with significant experience running an NHL bench. Although Boucher never coached a fourth season in any of his stops as a bench boss, even at the junior level, he could be considered a serial winner who managed to go on a long playoff run in every place he coached.
In his final season in the QMJHL, Boucher won 54 of 68 games with the Drummondville Voltigeurs and a league title. In his one season with the AHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs, Boucher went 52-17-11 and got to the third round of the Calder Cup playoffs.
In the NHL, Boucher’s Lightning team nearly beat the eventual champion Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Final, falling just short in a Game Seven.
Boucher’s SC Bern team in 2014-15 made it to the second round of the Swiss NL playoffs, and then Boucher’s Ottawa Senators went on a miracle run in his very first season there, coming one goal short of dethroning the defending champion Pittsburgh Penguins and reaching the Senators’ first cup final since 2007.
Sure, it must be noted that at each of Boucher’s NHL stops, the wheels fell off almost immediately after he went on his initial long playoff run. And given how much Boucher relied on his signature 1-3-1 defensive system, something he is highly unlikely to be able to deploy as Keefe’s assistant, one wonders if he’s going to be at his most valuable in this role. But seeing as Toronto is desperate to immediately go on the type of long playoff run Boucher has specialized in, it’s easy to see why they’ve targeted him.
As for Van Ryn, he’s also got the type of playoff experience behind the bench the Maple Leafs are hoping will translate to their own on-ice results. Van Ryn won a Stanley Cup with St. Louis in his very first season there and does have prior experience coaching in Ontario as he spent three seasons with the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers, including one as head coach.
The hiring of the two men completes Keefe’s coaching staff, which already boasts assistants Dean Chynoweth and Manny Malhotra, goaltending coach Curtis Sanford, and video coaches Jordan Bean and Sam Kim.
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