What direction will Leafs go with next head coach?

With an empty spot behind the bench, the Toronto Maple Leafs have an important decision to make.

On Wednesday, the Leafs announced that Craig Berube had been relieved of his duties as head coach. It came after a rough 2025-26 season where the team failed to reach the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in 10 years.

That leads many to wonder what new general manager John Chayka and senior executive advisor of hockey operations, and former Leafs captain, Mats Sundin will do when it comes to the hiring of the team’s new bench boss.

On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Jeff Marek of The Sheet joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to discuss what direction the Leafs might go in seeking their next head coach.

Jeff Marek: I do think it is a I don’t want to say young hire, but a young-ish hire. I think that this is along the lines of both, “Did you play?” and “Can you think?” at the same time. Having said that, I think we need to also consider who is making this decision. Certainly, John Chayka, as the general manager of the team, but also Matt Sundin. We have to factor in as well. I think we also have to factor in Tie Domi, who’s doing some consulting work with the organization, too. How much of a voice does Tie Domi have in all of this?

We start to look for sort of associations and things that fit. … The obvious names will be out there. Manny Malhotra’s name will be out there…Abbotsford head coach, won the Calder Cup last season. I think you can expect to hear a lot of Jay Woodcraft and his name out there very much. I don’t think that should be a surprise to anybody at this point. But again, if you start to sort of trace who’s worked with who and where Matt Sundin, Tie Domi, specifically, you would think about someone who’s currently actually coaching in Germany right now with Mannheim, and that’s Dallas Eakins. I think you’d expect to hear his name out there.

Maybe they just go the sort of the obvious route here and promote Mike Van Ryn, formerly assistant with the St. Louis Blues, assistant with the Toronto Maple Leafs…it’s a quick, easy shuffle from the assistant coaching position to the head coaching position there. 

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…