A 102 Year History of Toronto Maple Leafs Head Coaches

Toronto Maple Leafs – Pat Burns (Photo by Denis Brodeur/NHLI via Getty Images)The 1990s began with Tom Watt as the head coach.

But soon, Cliff Fletcher took over at the helm and began a rebuild that would include acquiring icon Doug Gilmore and replacing the head coach, Tom Watt (1990-1992) with Pat Burns in 1992.

Burns brought a hope to the dying light of the Leafs, and immediately turned them around, leading the team straight into their best playoff run since 1967.

Burns took the Toronto Maple Leafs to the conference finals against the LA Kings before infamously losing due to a uncalled high sticking penalty between Wayne Gretzky and Doug Gilmour.

Burns skill and ability to nurse the Leafs back into something great is what won him the Jack Adams Award, an award given to the coach who has most contributed to the success of the team. Burn was the first time a coach with the Leafs organization had been given the honor.

The Toronto Maple Leafs continued to have decent success under Burns and they saw the return to conference finals in ’94 against the Vancouver Canucks but were eliminated.

They returned to playoffs again in 1995 but after a tough losing streak in 1996, Burns was dismissed.

Nick Beverly, and then Mike Murphy would be named head coach between 1996-1998; Beverly worked as interim head coach for 17 games before Murphy was promoted from assistant coach to head coach but was let go shortly after taking the team to their second 6th place finish in their division back to back.

The Leafs end up once again rejuvenated by a head coach that went by Pat.