TORONTO — When a hockey season is flying off the rails, they say the easiest change to make is firing the coach.
Well, the Toronto Maple Leafs found an even easier out.
They fired the assistant, sparing head coach Craig Berube — for now.
Upon touching down from Dallas on Monday, returning from a disastrous 0-3 road trip, general manager Brad Treliving threw a body on the tarmac. The executive “relieved assistant coach Marc Savard of his duties,” which primarily consisted of running a power play that is destroying the club’s slimming chances of making the playoffs.
The way things have gone for Savard’s 5-on-4 crew through 35 games, relief may well be the accurate word. The man overseeing the disaster no longer must be associated with the disaster.
Savard’s firing felt inevitable after the Maple Leafs went 0-for-10 on the man-advantage on their recent road trip, including an 0-for-5 showing in Washington and an 0-for-4 effort in Dallas.
They got a good whistle in those games. Score one early on the power play, and maybe they gain momentum. Feel momentum, maybe they salvage some points.
“There’s a couple good looks. I think you’d like it to flow a little bit,” captain Auston Matthews said Sunday. “That’s obviously a big part of the game, and the part of the game that — in games like this, that are tight — you want to capitalize on.”
Toronto’s power play — which typically throws $44.4 million worth of talent over the boards — has been an unmitigated disaster.
Outscoring the opposition just 12-4 over 90 extra-man opportunities, the Leafs’ power play has sunk to 13.3 per cent and 8.9 per cent net. Both marks are the worst in the league.
One wouldn’t be crazy for wondering if having no power-play coach might yield better results.
Clearly missing quarterback Mitch Marner on PP1, Berube and Savard have thrown everything at the wall at 5-on-4.
Morgan Rielly, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and even Matthews have taken spins running the point. Rookie Easton Cowan got a peek on the top unit. And the nuclear option — two balanced units getting roughly a minute apiece — was employed over the weekend.
Nothing has clicked.
Most nights, it’s not clear what or who the Leafs are trying to set up with the man-advantage.
Curiously, Savard’s final pitch, the two-unit approach, has never been rehearsed in practice. He debuted the look in Nashville Saturday without a run-through during Friday’s practice.
Why not?
“Just because I didn’t want to, that’s all. I just didn’t want to get there,” Berube said. “I wanted to do work on other things, and I didn’t want to be out there very long.”
Paradoxically, Savard’s firing can be seen as both a warning shot and a reprieve for Berube, who handpicked this assistant upon his own hiring 19 months ago.
Berube and Savard had shared a bench in St. Louis. Happier times.
So, when Savard left the Calgary Flames and became a free agent in the summer of 2024, Berube wanted a reunion. (Under Savard’s watch, the Flames’ power play scuffled to 17.9 per cent and 26th overall.)
By removing his right-hand man, Treliving at once places Berube in the crosshairs and extends him some rope. The goodwill earned from last season’s regular-season Atlantic title and seven playoff wins is fading fast.
Yes, Berube still has more than two-and-a-half years on his contract with the team, but the cash-flush Maple Leafs have never shied away from paying coaches to not coach for them.
Treliving and MLSE chief Keith Pelley have adamantly supported Berube and his vision for how the Leafs should play. Berube’s players, through 35 games’ worth of evidence, are building a counterargument.
The brass knew there would be challenges, special teams and otherwise, after losing Marner. They never imagined they’d need to contemplate changes behind the bench before Christmas.
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It’s not entirely the head coach’s fault, but it could be his problem.
Savard’s firing is a half-measure and a full no-brainer.
Only time will tell if it’s enough to satiate a frustrated fan base begging for change, enough to jolt a star-studded power play that lacks urgency and cohesion and strategy.
The Maple Leafs wake up dead last in the Eastern Conference on Festivus morning. They are the most disappointing team in the NHL.
And yet, they are only six points out of a playoff spot with a game in hand.
Berube needs to shrink that gap fast.
Else, he’s next.
