Toronto Maple Leafs: Are Bruce Boudreau Rumours Becoming More Plausible?

Could the Toronto Maple Leafs be getting a new assistant coach?

During this upcoming offseason, while the Toronto Maple Leafs are taking care of some on-ice roster retooling, off-ice they are also going to be looking for a coach to fill the vacant position alongside Sheldon Keefe.

Soon after the NHL had pressed pause on their season on March 12th, the team announced Paul McFarland will be officially leaving the organization following the 2019-20 season. In his absence, the Toronto Maple Leafs are now left without a right-hand man for head coach Sheldon Keefe.

One name that keeps coming up is legendary head coach Bruce Boudreau.

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Bruce Boudreau

Several names were being tossed around by Leafsnation as to who they would like Kyle Dubas to add to Keefe’s coaching staff, however, when Elliotte Friedman dropped this little tidbit, in classic Friedge fashion, Leafsnation could not stop thinking about anyone else for the position:

"The Maple Leafs have an opening on their coaching staff, as power play specialist Paul McFarland heads to OHL Kingston. Out-of-the-box thought: Bruce Boudreau. He will want to be a head coach, first and foremost. That’s what he is. However, he’s always had a fascination with the team he grew up watching and played for."

As more reports started flowing in about the possibility of Boudreau actually coming home, the excitement just continued to grow. James Mirtle of The Athletic mentioned after Friedman’s article that he did a little digging on the matter and came across some more news on the rumours:

"The Leafs asked the Minnesota Wild for permission to talk to Boudreau at some point in the past few months. No formal interview has taken place, but the news got back to the 65-year-old coach fairly quickly. Those close to Boudreau say he is intrigued by the idea. The Leafs declined comment."

Mirtle only seemed to add juice to already the burning rumour fire, however, he seemed to downplay the likelihood the Boudreau-to-Toronto hiring would actually come to fruition by cautioning, “Boudreau’s preference is for another chance – likely his last, given his age – as an NHL head coach.”.

Of course, Boudreau’s first choice would be as an NHL head coach. His track record as a head coach in the NHL speaks for itself – winner of over 560 games, Jack Adams award recipient as coach of the year in 2008, and, in his 12 completed years of coaching, he has made the playoffs in 10 of those years never missing the dance in back to back seasons. Someone with a history like that, you cannot blame him for wanting the bigger gig.

Well, currently there are six head coaching jobs available – four teams with interim head coaches (Calgary, Dallas, Minnesota, and San Jose) and two teams with vacant head coaching positions (Washington and Seattle). In Calgary and Dallas, both teams found success under Geoff Ward and Rick Bowness respectively and most likely will remove their ‘interim coach’ tag and remain with them for 2020-21.

Calgary, with Bill Peters running the show, registered a .500 points-percentage in 28 games. With Ward, they finished the season sporting a .607 points-percentage in 42 games (stats; NHL.com). Dallas, with Rick Bowness in charge, is in the middle of a spirited Western Conference Finals series against the Vegas Golden Knights and at the time of writing this article, is currently two wins away from advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 2000.

In Minnesota, GM Bill Guerin is probably not going to hire Boudreau considering the Wild were the team who fired Boudreau midway through 2019-20 after three and two-thirds seasons with the team. Down in San Jose, after letting Peter DeBoer go, Bob Boughner took over the team. Kevin Kurz of The Athletic was asked recently in a mailbag article about Boughner’s future and he had this to say of the interim head coach:

"I’ve said many times and I’ll say it again that all signs point to Boughner returning as the head coach."

GM Brian MacLellan of the Washington Capitals seems to have finalized his top three remaining candidates for his head coaching gig into Mike Babcock, Gerard Gallant, and Peter Laviolette. The NHL’s newest franchise, the Seattle Kraken, also seems to have settled on those three candidates and will likely be choosing from the remaining two after Washington makes their hire.

And all of a sudden, there are no more head coaching jobs available. Boudreau chatted with Kevin McGran of the Toronto Star and had this to say regarding the notion Toronto contacted the Wild asking permission to talk to their former head coach:

"“I mean, I think the idea is cool…the biggest part of it is I just want to be involved in hockey and coaching in the NHL again next year. My goal is to become a head coach but the idea of being an assistant in Toronto is really intriguing.”"

Bruce clearly has an interest in joining the Toronto Maple Leafs franchise and Toronto clearly has an interest in adding him to their coaching staff, and with no head coaching jobs available, Boudreau-to-Toronto is looking more and more likely to actually come true.