Toronto Maple Leafs Have Hired Dean Chynoweth As Assistant Coach

At 4pm on Monday, July 12th, the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that they had hired Dean Chynoweth as their new assistant coach.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have been looking for a new assistant coach since Dave Hakstol left to be the head coach for the Seattle Kraken.

Back on June 11th, Sportnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported that the Carolina Hurricanes had given Chynoweth permission to explore other opportunities with other teams. It turns out he has found that opportunity with the Toronto Maple Leafs

Chynoweth (pronounced Shin-owth) had spent the last three seasons as an assistant coach for the Hurricanes. With the Hurricanes, Chynoweth was in charge of overseeing the defense and the penalty kill. He will likely be doing the same in Toronto.

Prior to working in Carolina, the Calgary, Alberta native spent four seasons as a head coach in the American Hockey League (AHL). Before his AHL coaching days, Chynoweth spent three seasons as an assistant coach with the New York Islanders (2009-2012).

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost an experienced coach in Hakstol, but bring in another experienced coach in Chynoweth. Whether he will be able improve Toronto’s already good defense and penalty kill is yet to be determined.

What Toronto Maple Leafs Fans Should Expect From Dean Chynoweth

During his time with the Hurricanes, the team was a solid defensive team. Chynoweth allocated ice time to the defensemen in Carolina that you’d hope he will do in a similar fashion in Toronto.

In Carolina he had three defensemen averaging 22 plus minutes per night (Dougie Hamilton, Jaccob Slavin and Brett Pesce), as well as Brady Skjei who averaged 20 minutes a night. The team also had a third pairing made up of defensemen averaging 16 minutes or less (Jake Gardiner, Haydn Fleury, Jake Bean, Etc.)

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a simular defense makeup with a fairly strong top four, and a mixture of defensemen making up the third pairing. The Leafs current defense might not be the same by the start of the season, but it will be up to Chynoweth to get the most of Toronto’s defense.

Will having Chynoweth on the Leafs coaching staff help Toronto general manager Kyle Dubas in his pursuit of Dougie Hamilton in free agency? I’m sure the coaching staff, players and fans sure hope so.

Hamilton is likely to get $8 million plus on the open market, so Toronto will need to trade away some salary in order to sign Hamilton. If they can find a way to sign the big defenseman, the team’s defense will take a big step forward.