The Top 5 Coaches in Toronto Maple Leafs History

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a rich history with many great coaches. We will rank the best of the best. These are the top five coaches in Leafs history.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been putting pucks in nets for over 100 years. In that span, they have had 39 different head coaches. Some ran the team for years while others were limited to very short runs. Mike Rodden and Dick Duff for example just coached two games each.

With a long list of bench bosses, it becomes difficult to determine who was the best. We have analyzed the games, the stats, and each coach’s contribution to its team. Based on all those factors, we will unveil the top five coaches in Maple Leafs history.

The qualifying factors for making this list have to do with just coaching. There has already been a top-five general managers list for the franchise, so a coach’s contribution to team composition will not be considered.

By eliminating the management duties that some former coaches had, it will allow for a focus on just on-ice performance. The questions need to be asked, how did a coach elevate his team and what level of success did they achieve?

In Leafs history, 18 coaches had winning records in the regular season. That includes Conn Smythe, the former owner and general manager who had an even winning percentage. Incredibly, Smythe not only split his regular-season games, but his postseason ones too.

Since winning/points percentage will play a role in helping establish who was the best, we will first eliminate the coach who had the best percentage ever while at the helm.

That belonged to Frank Carroll. He coached the team in 1921 when the franchise was still called the St. Patricks. Carroll was running the lines for 24 games, won 15 of them and lost nine.

Note: information for this article came from wikipedia, hockeydb,and hockeyreference.com

That means he won 62.5-percent of his games. Carroll then lost both of his playoff games. Unfortunately for him, with such a small body of work, he is far removed from reaching the top five list.

#5 – Dick Irvin

James Dickinson “Dick” Irvin Jr. spent nine seasons coaching the Maple Leafs. He was in charge from 1932 to 1940.

Though Irvin makes the list as one of the best, he is remembered best for his failures. Irvin lost in the Stanley Cup finals a record 12 times. Half of those losses were with the Leafs.

Irvin joined the Buds six games into the 1931-32 season. Art Duncan started the season, coaching the first five games. Since he didn’t win any of them (three losses and two ties), his contract was terminated and Irvin took over as the next full-time coach of the team. After the slow start with Duncan, the team found more success with Irvin. He led the club to win the Stanley Cup that year.

Irvin’s instant success was never repeated. The championship in 1932 was the only one he was able to capture with Toronto though he did win it three more times with the Montreal Canadiens. The Habs picked up Irvin after he lost in the 1940 finals. Smythe removed Irvin from his coaching duties, but recommended him to take the vacant position in Montreal.

As the head coach of the Leafs, Irvin picked up 57.5-percent of his regular-season points and won 50.8-percent of his postseason games. That was good enough for him to be named the NHL Second All-Star Team Coach five straight years while with the club.

Irvin’s impact with the Leafs was undeniable. The franchise was lucky to have had him as long as they did since Irvin is lauded as being one of the finest coaches in NHL history. He ranks fifth for the most career wins for a coach (692) behind only Ken Hitchcock (733), Al Arbour (782), Joel Quenneville (783), and Scotty Bowman (1,244). For Irvin, 31.2-percent of those wins were with the Maple Leafs.

Irvin was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1958 though he went in as a player. In 1983, he entered the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame where he was named Coach of the Century.

#4 – Pat Burns

For the 1992-93 season, Pat Burns took over a miserable Maple Leafs squad who only won 30 games the previous season under head coach Tom Watt. Burns had an immediate impact turning the team’s fortunes around.

Burns first season with the Buds was his fifth in the league. He showed his value, leading the team back into the playoffs. They hadn’t been there for the last three seasons. Prior to Burns’ arrival, the Leafs last appearance in the postseason lasted five games of which they won only one.

That 1993 group not only made the playoffs, but made it all the way to the third round, the Conference Finals against the Los Angeles Kings. They lost that series in seven games after referee Kerry Frasier infamously missed a high stick in Game 6 from Wayne Gretzky on Doug Gilmour. A five-minute major call could have helped the Leafs advance to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Burns’ ability to lift the team and get them to play to their best abilities was recognized by those around the league. He won the Jack Adams Award, which was the first time a Leafs coach had ever been given the honour. In fact, Burns remains the only person to win the award while with the Leafs. Burns himself had been named the Jack Adams recipient on two other occasions, once prior to joining the Leafs and again after he left Toronto.

Burns didn’t just have one great year with the Buds. In 1994, he took the team back to the Conference Finals, but they were eliminated by a Vancouver Canucks team being coached by Pat Quinn. The following year, Burns’ Leafs lost in the opening round to the Chicago Blackhawks.

Burns record in the postseason with the Maple Leafs was 23-23. Through his four regular season’s in the Big Smoke, his record was much better. In 281 games he posted 133 wins, 107 losses, and 41 ties. That’s a points percentage of 54.6.

Burns remains one of the Leafs best coaches because of his ability to adapt in-game, motivate his teams, and pick up wins.

While coaching the New Jersey Devils in 2003, Burns finally won the Stanley Cup. He coached just one more season after that and called it a career at age 51. He was battling cancer at the time, which took his life in 2010. Four years after his death, Burns was inducted into the Hall of Fame.

#2 – Punch Imlach

From one Hall of Fame coach to another, we land on the longest-serving coach in Leafs history, George “Punch” Imlach. Imlach was on the bench with the team for 12 seasons. As a result, he accumulated the most games in the regular season and in the playoffs on the bench with the Buds.

Imlach spent most of his NHL coaching career with the Maple Leafs. That journey began when he, as the team’s general manager, assigned himself coaching duties. It was a move that paid off. In the first nine years that Imlach held the reins, the team qualified for the playoffs. After he missed the postseason the next couple years, he was fired.

Leaving the Leafs allowed Imlach to become the first head coach and general manager in Buffalo Sabres history. He famously drafted Gilbert Perreault for the Sabres as their first overall and ever draft pick. Imlach’s time with the Sabres came to an abrupt and unfortunate halt when a heart attack in 1972 forced him to spend time away from the rink.

When Imlach was ready to return to hockey in 1979, he teamed up with Leafs owner Harold Ballard to manage in Toronto once again. Imlach decided to name himself the coach, a decision the players did not endorse as he had a contentious relationship with the stars on the team.

Imlach was behind the bench for just a single season when he returned. He then relinquished the role to a combination of Floyd Smith and a player he coached and even traded away, Dick Duff.

Why he’s second on this list

Imlach is number two on this list because of the playoff success he had with the Maple Leafs. He brought the Stanley Cup to Toronto four times. Three of those came as a natural-championship-hattricks. He won in 1962, 1963, and 1964. Imlach then captured one more, the last the franchise ever had, in 1967.

It’s hard to deny Imlach’s impact on the franchise. Not only did he capture four titles, but he won 370 of the 770 regular-season games he spent on the bench. The Leafs also tied 125 of their games, giving Imlach a points percentage of 56.2.

Imlach’s record would look even better if he stopped coaching after winning the last Cup. He was unable to win a single playoff game after that. Stafford Smythe tried to get Imlach to actually give up coaching in 1968, but he refused.

Amazingly, like Quinn, Imlach had a winning record every year he coached the Leafs. To have done that all twelve seasons is spectacular.

#1 – Hap Day

Clarence Henry “Happy” Day is the Toronto Maple Leafs best coach of all-time. He spent his entire career behind the bench with the organization, ten seasons. That came after he spent 13 years playing for the franchise, acting as captain for 11 of those seasons.

Interestingly, Day transitioned from playing to enforcing the rules as a referee. He wore the stripes for two years while coaching a minor league in Toronto. Day’s experience as an on-ice official helped him behind the bench thanks to his thorough understanding of the rules. When Day wanted to return to the NHL he was hired by Conn Smythe to take over the coaching duties that were vacated when Irvin left for the Canadiens job.

Day found success in his new role. In his first year, 1940-41, the team won 28 out of their 48 games with six ties. He followed that up the next season by winning the Stanley Cup in dramatic fashion.

The Toronto Maple Leafs were in a big hole in the Finals, down three games to none when they managed to claw their way to a 4-3 victory in Game 4. There was no looking back after that. The Leafs thumped the Red Wings in the remainder of the series, capturing Day’s first title as a coach.

That 1942 Stanley Cup would be far from Day’s last. He won it again in 1945. Then three more times in consecutive years starting in 1947. That was the first time the NHL had seen a coach three-peat.

Day won five titles in ten years coaching the team. He also had his name etched into the Cup two more times with the Maple Leafs, once as a player and another as the assistant general manager.

As the team’s coach. Day had a regular-season points percentage of 54.9 in 546 games. He also owned a playoffs winning percentage of 42.9.

Mike Babcock has a long way to go before he can be mentioned in the same breath as Day.

Though the current coach has an excellent 56.3 points percentage in five seasons, he needs to find ways to win in the postseason. When Babcock starts taking the Toronto Maple Leafs out of the first round, he might find himself usurping someone to make the top-five.