The Toronto Maple Leafs should have been in contention for a Stanley Cup appearance this season, but things haven’t gone exactly as planned. The NHL team is coming off a six-game losing 
streak with no clear guidance in sight and no vision of how to turn things around, and now head coach Mike Babcock is now polishing his resume.
The odds of the squad making it to the playoffs have fallen from +1200 to +1500 across the winless streak before dropping even further to +2000, and the team has done the only thing it believes will bolster the freefall.
Babcock joined the Maple Leafs in 2015 on a massive eight-year contract worth $50 million. Things haven’t picked up under his tenure, with the last playoff win for the team coming back in 2004. This season, they’re 9-10-4 and are in tenth place in the Eastern Conference. They’re also 24th in the league on goals-against per game with 3.43 and 27th on the penalty kill.
It isn’t all Babcock’s fault, though. Kyle Dubas, Toronto’s GM, wanted to put some strength up front and used half of the team’s salary cap, $40.75 million, to buy four forwards – Mitch Marner, Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares. This put the team in a precarious position with virtually no real defense and no top-tier talent in the net.
Because of the purchase, there isn’t enough room to go after a trade – anyone worth having isn’t in the budget. So, the next best thing is to try to reignite the Leafs by switching coaches. Coming in to take his place will be Craig Berube, the former NHL player and, later, head coach of the St. Louis Blues and the man that took the team to a Stanley Cup victory last season.
With the Maple Leafs already essentially looking at a failed season, they don’t have much to lose. Berube can use the rest of the year to get to know the team and begin working on a better solution for next year.
That is, of course, unless he pulls off another surprise. Berube was only the interim head coach of the Blues when they won the Stanley Cup. He had been the assistant head coach for the team until Mike Yeo was fired and he was promoted. He was able to use the little bit of time left in the season to turn things around and make a difference. Perhaps he can do the same for the Leafs.
