The Toronto Maple Leafs are looking for a new assistant coach.
Ex-Toronto Maple Leafs assistant Coach Dave Hakstol is now the very first coach in the history of the Seattle Kraken, which means the Leafs staff has a vacancy.
A vacancy that is rumoured to potentially be filled by ex-Arizona Coyotes Head Coach Rick Tocchet.
The Rumour comes from Elliotte Freidman’s weekly 31 Thoughts column sportsnet.ca, where Friedman writes that the Leafs quickly reached out to Tocchet once he was let go by Arizona.
Toronto Maple Leafs Assistant Coach
I used to write about the Arizona Coyotes for years and years, and I must say that back then, I was not a fan of Rick Tocchet as a coach. I thought he was too old-school and that he often dressed players who should have been sitting, sat players who should have been playing, and generally made a lot of questionable lineup and coaching decisions.
If the Leafs were interested in hiring Tocchet to be the coach of the team I would be against it. As an assistant though, who cares? Whoever is the team’s assistant coach doesn’t really matter from a fan’s perspective because what role the assistant coach plays and what he contributes to the day to day running of the team is usually not very clear.
For instance, Leafs assistant coach Manny Malhotra is supposedly in charge of the team’s power-play, but he doesn’t talk to the media about his power-play thoughts and strategies. We don’t know who else on the team contributes, or if he’s more of a x’s and o’s guy or a motivator or what?
It’s easy to look at the Toronto Maple Leafs last half-season of terrible power-play results and conclude that Malhotra is terrible at devising a power-play, but as fans, we don’t really have any idea of what kind of work he put in, or what he was thinking or how he planned or planned to change it. Did he fail the players? Did the players fail him? Was strategy even their problem? The only real info we have about his role is his title and the results.,
So, since that is the case, I don’t see much point in personally getting too invested into the assistant coaches role or even who the assistant coach is.
What I do know about Tocchet is that he’s a well respected guy that people genuinely seem to have real affection for. His stint as the coach of the Coyotes was not impressive to me, but then again, the Coyotes were also a terrible team and what is the guy supposed to do? Work miracles?
Is Tocchet a good choice for the Leafs? I don’t really know as far as what he’d bring to the team’s strategy and outlook. But I do think bringing quality people into your organization is always a good idea, so as much as I can work up an opinion on an assistant coach, I feel good about the Toronto Maple Leafs hiring Rick Tocchet.