It took a reported 55 candidates, 25 thorough interviews, five or so finalists, and after a spring’s worth of speculation, the Toronto Maple Leafs have finally made their main decision behind the bench for the 2026/27 season. What’s most interesting, though? Their guy was someone both very familiar, yet completely outside of the conversation.
From the ashes of watercooler talk and media hits comes Jim Hiller, who recently spent two years coaching the Los Angeles Kings and might be better known in town for his four years as an assistant coach with the Maple Leafs between 2015/16 and 2018/19.
Hiller, 57, has been in the coaching mix in some way, shape, or form since 2003, beginning his journey with twelve years in various roles in junior hockey before stops as an assistant with Detroit, Toronto, the New York Islanders, and Los Angeles. Midway through the 2023/24 season, Hiller took over for Todd McLellan in the big chair, holding that spot before being fired late in this season.
“I’m incredibly excited for the opportunity to return to Toronto and lead the Maple Leafs,” said Hiller in the team’s official press release. “This is a special organization with great players, passionate fans and high expectations. I’m looking forward to getting to work with our players and staff and doing everything we can to help this team reach its full potential.”
Like always, there are pushes and pulls with this hire.
One who prefers to look at a half-filled glass as half-empty will be quick to point out Los Angeles’ struggles to escape the first round of the playoffs in recent years, and the fact that Toronto saw him as unhelpful to the solution in their early years, as they chose not to renew him when he departed in 2019. They’ll point to Los Angeles’ defensive, often trap-like system and put it in direct conflict with the hopes that the Leafs go back to focusing on offensive, up-tempo hockey. Those are all pretty fair concerns.
On the half-full side, they’ll point to Hiller’s reputation as a strong communicator. They’ll point to the success of Toronto’s powerplay at it’s peak when he was an assistant. They’ll point out his willingness to work with data-driven research, having co-run the “TruPerformance” tracking platform before his NHL coaching career began, which aligns with a fellow Platform Guy in John Chayka and may be been an initial networking point for the two. They’ll point to Los Angeles having strong goal and shot differential numbers in Los Angeles, the latter of which was a huge concern for Toronto this year. These points are also all fair.
I think there’s a world where all of the above can mesh with each other. I wonder a lot about how much of the defence-first scheming with the Kings was rooted in dealing with the cards the team was dealt. The Kings have a well-rounded roster, but also have had one player exceed 75 points in a season in the last decade. They’ve had two-way talents, some exceptional, but few true offensive gamebreakers. There’s an argument to be had that going defence-first with who they had was in the team’s best interests, especially when their first round opponents of the past four years have been the Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Oilers, Edmonton Oilers, and Colorado Avalanche.
You also hope that a team that has Auston Matthews, William Nylander, John Tavares and presumably is about to have Gavin McKenna would be interested in asserting themselves as the team to match up against, rather than the team to trying to cancel their opponents out. A big gripe of mine throughout the Matthews era has been the team’s pursuit of winning matchup hockey in the spring instead of building waves of threat and letting their opponents deal with it.
“There’s a pretty standard template across the league, that all coaches play with”, said Hiller in his introductory video conference. “I don’t believe that one is better than the other. I think really, draw it back to the spirit of the team and the commitment. If everybody does everything together and feels good about it, there’s room to play different styles within that.”
Across the two years that Hiller coached the Kings for all but 23 games, Los Angeles finished 6th in the NHL shot attempt share, 5th in expected goal share, and 3rd in actual goal share. Interestingly, when comparing their attempts to expected goals, Los Angeles tended to take a higher volume of low-quality shots on the offensive side, (4th in attempts per hour, 11th in shots on goal, and 14th in expected goals at 5v5), while also forcing opponents in to weaker shots on the defensive side (conceding the 9th fewest attempts against per hour, 4th fewest shots on goal, and the fewest expected goals). This emphasis on preventing quality could be part of why the Kings had the best 5v5 in the past two years.
Again, I don’t think I want Toronto to copy that system, as it’s one that you use to keep a less-creative team in the mix rather than one you use to bully a creative one through a wall, but it shows Hiller’s ability to form a game plan and execute it, which is encouraging.
“We’ll have lots of discussions. We’ll have a style of play that the players will be excited to play in,” Hiller said. “I think that is most important.”
Much has been already been made of Toronto giving another coach a chance to find a solution with Matthews and Nylander, though the narrative doesn’t really match reality. Toronto has been among the most patient teams with their coaches in the past decade, just now moving to their fourth person who’s spent time as head coach while most of the league has gone through five, six, or even seven different bench bosses in the same span.
Admittedly, it is interesting that they went to a candidate that much of the core already had familiarity with from his time as an assistant, and one who is considered more player-friendly, especially after having a coach with a more accountability-driven reputation in Craig Berube struggle the way he did here. It’s also fascinating that if they were going to go for a reunion, they picked an assistant with traits similar to Sheldon Keefe’s, but of the Mike Babcock coaching tree.
Nevertheless, it gives Hiller the opportunity to try to turn back the clock to what felt like an inflection point for the team as his dismissal came as the team began to accelerate making moves to match their rivals rather than be the best version of themselves. That still brought them a decent degree of success, but you wonder what can happen with a second attempt at shaping history.
Hiller, admittedly, wasn’t a candidate on my radar either. Of the major ones, I wondered a lot about Anaheim assistant Jay Woodcroft given how he had the Oilers playing with pace in his time as the Head Coach there, and I wondered about Bruce Cassidy given his successes with Boston and Vegas. It feels like the former never really got far in the process, and if Hiller’s personality was as big of a plus as it’s been implied today, maybe Cassidy’s reputation for burning out his locker rooms was a concern. I also like this route quite a bit better than some of the other rumoured finalists, like Patrick Roy (also defence first, but with less underlying success and more yelling) and Joe Pavelski (seemingly a fan favourite just on vibes, given his lack of experience).
There is also an easy connection to make for organizational consistency between Hiller and Marlies coach John Gruden. The two spent three years coaching together as assistants with the Islanders, so reconnecting a working relationship there should be fairly straightforward.
This is to say, I’m pretty open minded here. There was an initial shock when this news came down given Hiller not being in initial discussions, but I’ve warmed up to the idea of there being something here. After all, this is a league where there’s only a few sure-fire “coaches that matter” in a positive, results-driving way, and where there are a lot of anvils available to hitch to your ship. Sometimes, the best route you can go is to get someone who’s been pretty good, and has the potential to set a good culture that blends positivity with work ethic within your organization.
If Hiller is that guy, and the front office can find him pieces that encourage a more exciting style of play, there might be something here. The work is far from done or proven, however, so we’ll see how this summer continues to unfold.
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