The Toronto Maple Leafs are taking a page out of the Montreal Canadiens' playbook to find their next head coach.
Montreal's own head coach that has found some success with the team, Martin St. Louis, did not have any coaching experience outside of being behind the bench for his son's minor-league team. Nothing even in junior hockey and of course, nothing at the professional level. It was seen as a shocking hire, but since he garners so much respect around the game for being a Hall-of-Famer and one of the most well-liked guys around the game, the concerns were soon lifted.
And now, the Canadiens just finished a berth into the Eastern Conference Final as the youngest team in the entire playoffs thanks to St. Louis.
With that sucess, Maple Leafs general manager John Chayka is now trying to replicate it in Toronto. According to a report from Elliotte Friedman, the Leafs are going to be interviewing long-time NHL forward Joe Pavelski to be their next head coach.
"According to multiple sources, the Future Hall-of-Famer is on the Maple Leafs’ radar as the team begins the next phase of its interview process, with one describing him as a “Martin St. Louis-style candidate," Friedman wrote on Sunday.
"Pavelski, who retired at the end of the 2023-24 season, has coached son Nate at the youth level in Madison, Wisc. That’s similar to St. Louis’ path to Montreal. It’s an interesting twist, as Toronto backed away from some other candidates due to a lack of experience."
It is true. It's so similar to St. Louis's own story. Pavelski was an assistant coach for the 14U AAA Madison Capitals, when his son Nate was on the team. And he was then promoted as Nate went up to the 15U AAA squad, where Pavelski joined as a head coach this past season.
Could such an unorthodox hire work twice and for the Leafs?
This could be seen as ripping off everything going on with the Canadiens. Pavelski, like St. Louis, is seen as one of the legends around the NHL that everyone seems to have a positive feeling about. And then the thing about coaching his son's minor-league team before getting attention from one of the most high-profile jobs in the entire sport -- it just feels a little too copycat.
The NHL is a copycat league after all, but this is just so risky.
Montreal were in the middle of their rebuild when they hired St. Louis. Injecting more and more young talent that they drafted very high and had limited veterans at the top of the lineup. Sean Monahan, Christian Dvorak, Mike Hoffman, Josh Anderson, Jonathan Drouin -- those are the veterans that St. Louis was in charge of during his first year behind the Montreal bench.
If Pavelski were to be hired, it would be an entirely different situation with stars like Auston Matthews and William Nylander. That isn't even considering how John Tavares would deal with the situation of having a player he faced off against for several years, now in charge of him. It's a little bit of a different dynamic.
Unless the Maple Leafs are fully committing to a rebuild and trading away those star players and want someone who can grow with their team, then it might be a tough sell.
Lots of question marks around these coach interviews.
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