Earlier this offseason, the Toronto Maple Leafs have already taken great strides in overhauling their management group. Mats Sundin and John Chayka were recruited to lead the way for the Maple Leafs as the Senior Executive Advisor of Hockey Operations and General Manager respectively. Shane Doan was let go as the former special advisor for the Leafs and of course the recent surprise hiring of head coach Jim Hiller to take over behind the bench for Toronto.
Well, the Maple Leafs continued their reshaping of their management group with another significant move on Friday. Toronto parted ways with assistant coach Mike Van Ryn after spending three seasons with the club, as reported by Nick Alberga.
Maple Leafs fire assistant coach Mike Van Ryn
As a former Leaf during his days as a player back during the 2008-09 NHL season, Van Ryn was hired by the Maple Leafs to be their assistant coach after he was fired by the St. Louis Blues following the 2022-23 season. After joining Toronto, his main duties in the role involved overseeing the Leafs defense.
Van Ryn did fairly well with the group initially, especially during the 2024-25 campaign when the core group gave up only 231 goals to rank eighth in the league that year. However, the Leafs defense had a dreadful 2025-26 season that saw them fall to the bottom of the NHL in terms of goals against with a whopping 299 total goals given up to rank second last among the 32 teams. Not only that, Toronto also managed to give up the most shots on average at 32.4 per game.
Of course, that combination ended up being a recipe for disaster as the Maple Leafs ended up failing to make the playoffs for the first time in ten years. Without question that type of performance by Toronto played a role in Van Ryn and his eventual departure from the organization. But at the same time, usually when a new head coach moves in to run the team, they often want their own specific personnel to help out as assistant coaches. So it now gives Hiller the opportunity to bring in the necessary missing pieces to complement his coaching team going forward.
For now, in terms of the Maple Leafs coaching staff, Derek Lalonde and Steve Sullivan still remained as assistant coaches and Curtis Sanford as the goaltending coach from the 2025-26 season. But with the way things have been moving this offseason, anything can still happen between now and the start of their 2026-27 campaign. One thing is for sure though, it is all but certain that Toronto will look a lot different both on the ice and in the front office once the puck drops this fall.
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