John Chayka continues to retool the Toronto Maple Leafs’ roster by acquiring Darren Raddysh in a sign-and-trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday to address the blueline. So far, Chayka’s moves seem sensible. His first move involved trading Joseph Woll a few days earlier for a young, puck-moving defenceman. This not only freed up cap space and flexibility but also made sense given the Leafs have an organizational strength at goaltending, especially with the emergence of Artur Akhtyamov.
However, when Chayka hired Jim Hiller as head coach, it turned many heads. Fans will point to his disastrous end with the Los Angeles Kings as reason enough to not hire him. Others will point to the fact that he does not have that much experience as a head coach, and the Leafs need to compete for a deep playoff run starting this year.
In this article, let’s take a look at why the Hiller hiring maybe makes more sense than it does at first pass, and why we should be excited for the upcoming season.
Jim Hiller’s tenure with the Los Angeles Kings
Hiller was promoted to head coach of the Kings from assistant coach during the 2023–24 season, finishing with a 21–12–1 record. This earned him the head coaching job for the next two seasons. The following season, he improved his winning percentage from 0.632 to 0.640 with a 48–25–9 record. However, as in the season prior, he lost in the first round to the Edmonton Oilers, blowing a 2–0 series lead.
His final season as head coach with the Kings was last year, where he finished with a 35–27–20 record. However, this season resulted in another first-round failure, this time being swept by the Colorado Avalanche.
I think when Leafs fans look at this, it’s reasonable to think, “Oh great, another first-round exit coach.” However, there is some nuance that I think is overlooked. Firstly, like the Leafs, who have played one of the Boston Bruins, Florida Panthers, or Tampa Bay Lightning several years in a row, the Kings have been forced to play a very good team in the first round, either the Edmonton Oilers or the Colorado Avalanche.
I realize some will take this as an excuse. But I do think it’s relevant to some degree. The Leafs should have figured it out after nine years. But imagine if the Leafs had multiple attempts going through the Anaheim Ducks and Utah Mammoth in the first couple of rounds?
Let’s play devil’s advocate and say that the Kings beat the Oilers and the Avalanche during those three years (assuming he stayed for the duration of last season). Would people talk about Hiller’s “great coaching?” Or would the narrative shift and focus more on the collapse of these two Stanley Cup-contending teams? I think it would be more the latter–that it would be that the Kings “overachieved” rather than Hiller getting his flowers for outcoaching the opposition.
I think the larger issue why the Kings lost was due to roster construction rather than coaching.
Forcing a square peg into a round hole
With the Kings, Hiller often ran a 1–3–1 system, which is more of a defence-oriented system. However, when looking at the roster, it makes sense. The Kings have a number of older veterans who have lost a step in foot speed, such as Anze Kopitar (38), Drew Doughty (36), Brian Dumoulin (34), and Joel Armia (33).
While the Kings have some offensive firepower, such as Quinton Byfield and Artemi Panarin, it is not as “high end” as we have seen on the Leafs, who have Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Matthew Knies, (hopefully Gavin McKenna soon), etc.
But the problems in Toronto, I would argue, were largely due to Craig Berube trying to force his Stanley Cup-winning St. Louis Blues team structure on a Leafs’ roster that was not constructed for this style of play. As I have discussed before, Auston Matthews, who won the Maurice Richard trophy three times in his career, took many more defensive zone starts than his comparators.
Last season, Matthews spent 40.6% of the time in the defensive zone, and started 32% of the time in the defensive zone. When compared to Connor McDavid, who had 35.4% and 25%, or Nathan MacKinnon, who had 35.3% and 24%, respectively, it’s no wonder that Matthews had the lowest point totals of his career. If Matthews is not scoring, the Leafs are not winning. It’s as simple as that.
And it’s not just Matthews. Nylander and many of the other players looked miserable trying to play Berube’s system. It’s not that these are bad players; it’s that the roster was not designed to play this style of play effectively. Nor did Brad Treliving change the roster to suit this style.
In Hiller’s introduction Zoom presser, he hinted that he adapts his system to the personnel on the roster, and more importantly, wants his players to have fun playing hockey. It does not seem that Hiller is going to force the Leafs to play a defensive system, but rather play to their strengths. This is what you want any good coach to do, rather than force a square peg into a round hole because that’s the only peg you have.
Prior familiarity and star approval
From all accounts, the Leafs cast a very wide net by talking to 55 people about the head coaching position. And it’s not like the Leafs’ organization and Jim Hiller are unknown to one another.
Jim Hiller was the power play coach for four seasons during the Mike Babcock era, from the 2015–16 season to the 2018–19 season. Not surprisingly, the Leafs’ power play in the 2015–16 season was 29th (after which they drafted Matthews). From then on, the Leafs’ power play percentage was 2nd in 2016–17, 2nd in 2017–18, and 8th in 2018–19. We know how the Leafs’ power play has been in recent years.
Hiller has helped develop Matthews and Nylander when they were starting in their careers, and by all accounts, they liked playing under him. With Matthews’ camp for the first time expressing uncertainty in staying in Toronto earlier this offseason, I would wager he would have had some say in whether Hiller was hired. Or at the very least, involved to the degree of other superstars like McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
For these reasons, I will reserve judgment until the Leafs play 20–25 games with Hiller as the bench boss. But there are hints that the general manager, the coaching staff, and the Leafs’ roster will all be on the same page, finally.
While the first overall pick is very nice, perhaps more importantly, Chayka is starting to truly address the Leafs’ historically offensively anemic back-end. So far, Chayka has signed Raddysh, who can shoot the puck and quarterback a power play, and brought in Emil Andrae into the system, a young, puck-moving defenceman known for being good on the transition. These early signs all point to the likelihood that we will see a more offence-oriented system next year.
Imagine what this team will look like with a back-end that can move the puck efficiently out of the zone to the forwards, having more threats on the power play, especially from the point, and the players playing a system that they believe in and want to play?
Things are starting to look up.
