The Maple Leafs Head Coach Search Comes Down to Pavelski and Woodcroft

The Maple Leafs head coach search has quietly become a two-man race. After weeks of John Chayka working through a candidate list that reportedly ran past 50 names, the conversation in Toronto has narrowed to two: Jay Woodcroft and Joe Pavelski. Multiple reports this week suggested the Leafs have effectively settled on their direction and that Chayka will confirm the hire before the 2026 NHL Draft opens on June 26 — and the most intriguing wrinkle is that the two finalists might end up on the same bench.

Where the Maple Leafs head coach search stands

This was never going to be a quiet process. Chayka inherited a vacancy the moment Craig Berube was fired on May 13, and he treated the search like a front-office audit. By early June, reports from David Pagnotta and others pegged the candidate pool at roughly 55 names, with about 20 of them granted a longer, formal interview. That is not a man in a hurry to rubber-stamp a familiar face.

The field thinned the way these searches always do. Peter Laviolette took the Los Angeles Kings job. Bruce Cassidy, still under contract in Vegas, was effectively blocked from a real conversation. Patrick Roy, Dallas Eakins and internal option John Gruden lingered on the shortlist without ever feeling like the answer. By the second week of June, the names that kept surfacing in the reporting were Woodcroft and Pavelski — and the tone shifted from "who is left" to "which one, and in what order."

We laid out the broad strokes of this process in our look at how the coaching search hit its final stretch. What has changed in the days since is the clarity: this is now a choice between two men who already know each other extremely well.

The case for Jay Woodcroft

Woodcroft is the safer, more conventional pick, and he has been treated as the favourite for most of the past week. He has actual NHL head-coaching experience — he went 79-41-13 with the Edmonton Oilers from December 2021 until his dismissal early in the 2023-24 season, and he took that group to a Western Conference Final. He spent this past season back on an NHL staff in Anaheim, where he was on the bench as the Ducks knocked his former Oilers out in the first round of the 2026 playoffs.

The pitch is straightforward. Woodcroft is a detail-driven, video-heavy coach who built his reputation on systems work and player development before he ran a bench. He is exactly the kind of structured, modern voice Chayka described wanting when he laid out his blueprint for the next head coach. He has also coached stars before — Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl played some of their most efficient hockey under him — which matters for a Leafs room built around Auston Matthews and William Nylander.

The Joe Pavelski wild card

Pavelski is the candidate nobody saw coming, and the one who makes this story worth watching. Elliotte Friedman reported he was a genuine finalist, and Pavelski himself confirmed he had interviewed. The résumé is the obvious problem: his entire coaching experience amounts to one season behind the bench of his son's under-16 team in Wisconsin. There is no NHL staff time, no AHL apprenticeship, no junior head-coaching record to point to.

What he has instead is a 1,300-plus-game playing career, a reputation as one of the most respected leaders of his generation, and the kind of locker-room credibility that cannot be taught. The Leafs have spent years being told they lack a hard edge and a clear identity. Pavelski's pitch is that he can install both by force of personality. It is a high-variance bet — the kind of hire that either looks visionary in three years or collapses inside one. We dug into the upside and the obvious risk in our earlier piece on Pavelski as a head-coach candidate.

The seven-year connection that ties them together

Here is the detail that reframes the whole search. Pavelski and Woodcroft are not two separate candidates competing for one chair. They are former colleagues. Woodcroft was an assistant coach in San Jose from 2008 to 2015, the same seven seasons Pavelski was establishing himself as a Sharks core piece. Pavelski put up better than 400 points in the roughly 500 games he played under that staff. They know each other's hockey language cold.

That shared history has fed real speculation that Chayka could hire both — one as head coach, the other as his most important assistant. The cleanest version has Woodcroft running the bench with Pavelski as an associate coach handling the room, the power play and the leadership-group dynamics. The bolder version flips it: Pavelski as the face and the voice, Woodcroft as the structural brain beside him. Either way, the seven years in San Jose are the reason both names refuse to fall off the board.

What Chayka is actually optimizing for

Chayka has been unusually candid that he wants a coach who fits a long-term plan rather than a quick-fix reputation. The Leafs are not rebuilding — Matthews, Nylander, Matthew Knies and the rest of the core are still here — but the supporting cast and the blueline are being reshaped around a $104-million cap. A coach hired now will inherit a roster that looks meaningfully different by October, especially if Chayka leans into the trade market the way our free-agency breakdown suggested he might.

That argues for a partnership rather than a single hire. A first-time bench boss is far less daunting when he has a former NHL head coach beside him, and a structured veteran like Woodcroft is more dynamic when paired with a communicator who commands instant respect. Whether Chayka frames it that way publicly or not, the math of the situation points toward a staff, not a name.

Why the timing matters before the draft

The June 26 deadline is not arbitrary. The Leafs hold the first overall pick and are widely expected to take Gavin McKenna, a franchise-altering forward we have covered at length. A team does not want to walk into the most important draft in a decade without a head coach in the building, both for optics and because the new staff should have a voice in how the organization frames its young talent. Chayka also has free agency opening July 1 and a blueline to retool — decisions a head coach should be part of, not handed after the fact.

There is a recruiting angle too. Whatever Chayka does on the trade and free-agent markets is easier to sell when a coach is in place and the message is consistent. Leaving the chair empty into July would undercut every other move he is trying to make this summer.

What's next

Expect an announcement inside the next several days, almost certainly before the draft. If the reporting holds, the headline name will be Woodcroft, with Pavelski's involvement the detail that tells you how seriously Chayka took the leadership question. If it is Pavelski, it will be the gutsiest hire of his tenure and a clear signal that the Leafs are betting on culture over conventional pedigree.

Either way, the search that started with 55 names is ending with two — and the smart money says Toronto finds a way to keep both. Track the rest of the offseason moving pieces on our contracts and draft pages as the picture firms up.