Maple Leafs Hire Jim Hiller as Head Coach in Chayka's Surprise Pick

Maple Leafs hire Jim Hiller as head coach to replace Berube

The Maple Leafs hired Jim Hiller as head coach on Wednesday, ending a five-week search and installing the 57-year-old as the 41st bench boss in franchise history. The move closes the book on the Craig Berube era, which general manager John Chayka ended on May 13, and it does so with a name almost nobody in the Toronto media saw coming.

Hiller was not linked to the Maple Leafs head coach job at any public point during the process. While reports cycled through candidates like Joe Pavelski, Jay Woodcroft, John Tortorella and a long list of NHL assistants, Hiller's name stayed off the board entirely. That silence was by design. Chayka has run this offseason with the secrecy of a man who does not leak, and the Hiller hire is the loudest proof yet that the front office is comfortable surprising its own fan base.

Who is Jim Hiller and why Toronto

This is not a stranger walking into the building. Hiller spent four seasons as a Maple Leafs assistant coach from 2015 to 2019, the front half of the Mike Babcock years, working with a core that was just starting to feature Auston Matthews and William Nylander. He knows the market, he knows the spotlight, and crucially, he already has relationships inside a room he is now being asked to lead.

His most recent job was running the Los Angeles Kings. Hiller took over on an interim basis in February 2024, earned the permanent title that May, and posted a 93-58-24 record across 175 games for a .600 points percentage. That is a genuinely strong regular-season number. The catch sits in the playoffs, where his Kings repeatedly ran into the Edmonton Oilers and could not get over the hump, leaving him 3-8 in postseason games before Los Angeles fired him on March 1 following a lopsided 8-1 loss to those same Oilers.

So Chayka has hired a coach with a proven ability to win 82-game schedules and an unproven ability to win in the spring. For a franchise whose entire identity has become its April collapses, that is either the wrong resume or exactly the bet worth making, depending on how much you trust the man making it.

The search that ran through more than two dozen candidates

Chayka and his staff were thorough to the point of obsession. Toronto spoke with more than two dozen candidates and worked the phones across the league, canvassing former players, support staff and executives about anyone in the mix. The depth of the process is part of why the result landed as a shock. After weeks of speculation pointing toward bigger names and bolder swings, the Maple Leafs chose continuity of character over splash.

According to Chayka, the deciding factor was word of mouth. Players who had been around Hiller, the GM said, valued who he is as a person and felt they could trust him. That is a notable framing for a team coming off a season that ended in finger-pointing and a coaching change. Chayka is betting that the room's biggest problem was not the X's and O's but the buy-in, and that a coach the players already respect can rebuild it faster than a hard-edged outsider could.

For the backstory on how Chayka built this search and why he prized discretion above all, see our breakdown of what John Chayka actually wanted in the next Maple Leafs head coach.

The reaction has been decidedly mixed

Toronto did not greet the news with a parade. The early reaction across NHL media and the fan base ranged from puzzled to underwhelmed, with a recurring theme: after a search this long and this public, this is the name. Some observers framed Hiller as a safe, even uninspiring choice for a team that needs to break a championship drought that now stretches back to 1967. Others pushed back, noting that a coach with a .600 points percentage and a Jack Adams-calibre season on his resume is hardly a reach.

The skepticism is fair, but so is the counterpoint. The Maple Leafs have spent the better part of a decade hiring decorated, big-personality coaches and watching the season end the same way. Mike Babcock had the pedigree. Sheldon Keefe had the analytics fluency. Craig Berube had the Stanley Cup ring. None of it changed the outcome. There is a defensible logic in trying a different kind of hire when the famous kind keeps failing.

What Hiller inherits in Toronto

The roster Hiller is taking over is in motion. Chayka has already made his first big swing of the summer, trading goaltender Joseph Woll to the Philadelphia Flyers, and the front office continues to explore a Morgan Rielly trade that would reshape the blue line. Whatever Hiller's preferred system, he is going to be coaching a different team than the one that missed the playoffs in the spring.

The bones are still strong. Matthews remains the captain and the centrepiece. Nylander is coming off a productive year. Matthew Knies has grown into a power forward the team wants to build around, and the goaltending picture now runs through Anthony Stolarz. Toronto also holds the No. 1 overall pick at the upcoming draft, with Gavin McKenna the widely expected selection. You can track the full roster and depth chart on our players page, and the cap picture on the contracts page.

The staff and the questions still open

Hiller's coaching staff is not yet finalized. He indicated he has not decided whether to retain holdover assistants, with reports naming Derek Lalonde and Mike van Ryn among those whose status is undetermined. The makeup of that staff will tell us plenty about the direction Chayka and Hiller want to go, particularly on a power play and penalty kill that both need real work. Expect the staff to come together in the days around the draft.

The timing matters too. The Maple Leafs wanted their coach in place before the 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo on June 26, and they got there with a week to spare. That lets Hiller have a voice, however small, in the organization's biggest decision of the offseason and gives him a runway into free agency on July 1. For the full slate of dates ahead, see our 2026 NHL Draft guide.

What's next for Hiller and the Maple Leafs

The honeymoon will be short. Hiller takes over a team with championship expectations, a demanding market and a general manager who has already shown he will move quickly and decisively. The first real tests come fast: building out a staff, helping shape the McKenna pick, and navigating a free-agency period where Toronto has cap decisions to make.

The Berube firing told us Chayka wanted an organizational shift. The Hiller hire tells us what kind. Not a celebrity. Not a retread of the same archetype. A coach the players trust, with a regular-season track record and a playoff question mark, handed the hardest job in hockey. Whether that bet pays off will be settled in the spring, not the summer, but the direction is now unmistakable. You can follow where Toronto sits all season on our standings page.