The NHL is a copycat league. After seeing the Montreal Canadiens' success under Martin St. Louis, it isn't surprising that teams have started looking to recently retired players to mentor their players. However, with the Toronto Maple Leafs searching for their next head coach, including someone like Joe Pavelski on the list of interviewees makes little sense given where they are as a franchise.
St. Louis was coaching a 13U AAA team in Connecticut when he was given the reins as head coach of the Canadiens. Pavelski, similarly, was the head coach of the 15U AAA Madison Capitols this past season, which you could argue is a step above where St. Louis was, but for the sake of this exercise, is still well below the threshold of being an NHL head coach.
could follow the Marty St. Louis blueprint if his elite NHL skill + thinking translates to a coaching role.
— Shayna (@shaynagoldman_) June 7, 2026
MSL has been a breath of fresh air in the coaching field, is the fifth-longest tenured right now, and is the rare rebuilding coach to turn the corner with their team. https://t.co/vtcxf9D9qq
No one is arguing that the Canadiens' decision to hire St. Louis was a mistake. They did get clowned for it early because of the optics of hiring a minor hockey coach, but their rise to the Eastern Conference Final this season likely wouldn't have happened without their head coach. Cole Caufield attributes his 50-goal season to having someone like St. Louis there to mentor him.
The problem is that Caufield was 21 years old when St. Louis joined the team. Nick Suzuki was a 22-year-old, still learning the ropes and young enough for his head coach to help mold him into the player he has become. The Canadiens were at the beginning of a rebuild that proved very successful.
Are the Maple Leafs rebuilding or not?
Whether or not you believe the Maple Leafs should enter a rebuild, by all accounts, they have an interest in keeping Auston Matthews and William Nylander around to try to re-enter a competitive window. There will be a first-overall pick for the next head coach to lead, but the rest of the team's core is already set in their ways.
It took some time for people to give St. Louis the respect of being one of the league's top coaches. There is a good chance that it would take Pavelski the same amount of time, and with Matthews (28) and Nylander (30), the Maple Leafs don't exactly have the gift of a ton of time.
If Toronto did end up deciding on Pavelski, they may as well go full Canadiens and enter a rebuild. Let Pavelski grow with a young team and hope they can become contenders in as little as four years, as Montreal did with St. Louis. If the front office is trying to convince the captain and other aspiring Leafs that they are in win-now mode, a hire like Pavelski does little to move the needle.
An interview with Pavelski could be a fact-finding mission for Chayka. Maybe it's a ploy to gather some information, find out where the ex-NHLer's head is at, and maybe hire him in a different role than head coach.
However, if he is a legitimate candidate, Chayka's first major move in charge of the Leafs would go just as his Arizona career went: attempting to look like the smartest guy in the room with outside-the-box decisions. Sometimes that strategy works, but this one would feel a little too forced when more experienced, win-now-ready options are available.
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