Toronto Maple Leafs New Head Coach Candidates
By James Tanner
Mitch Love
Mitch Love is an AHL coach with Calgary’s AHL team, the Calgary Wranglers.
Love has won the AHL Coach of the Year award in back-to-back years. As the current coach of Calgary’s AHL team, he clearly has ties to new Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving.
Should Sheldon Keefe get the axe (which, again, he totally should) expect Love to become a top candidate, though he may just get promoted to the Flames, as they need a new coach too.
Gerard Gallant
Gallant has coached Columbus, Vegas, Florida and New York. He’s been fired four times in the last 20 years, and I wouldn’t want the Toronto Maple Leafs to hire him, but he’s a name candidate and will likely get a look.
20 years and he’s never gone beyond year three with any of his teams. That seems like a major red flag to me.
He’s a generic NHL coach and while there are exceptions (Claude Julien) I see so much more upside to hiring a newer coach like Love than a guy like this.
Peter Laviolette
5 teams over the last 25 years, he’s one of the worst offenders for recycled NHL coach. This is a. name that gets brought up whenever someone needs a new coach, but come on, there’s so many better options.