The Coach of Chaos — The Fourth Period

It’s early days for new Toronto Maple Leafs’ GM John Chayka and de facto President of Hockey Operations and org-wide teacher of How-to-be-a-Leader, Mats Sundin. 

So, while Mitch Marner does what was inevitable the second he stepped on the ice in the playoffs for a team other than the Leafs, let’s hop into a ‘67 Shelby Cobra Mustang and look at two Leafs’ Head Coaching options and how former and prospective future first-overall draft picks are impacted by the incoming coach.  

The Ace of Spaces, the Head of Coaches 

Bruce Cassidy this. Bruce Cassidy that. He is the biggest name on the market and Toronto’s job is the highest profile. Toronto wants to retool, and likewise it is well known that Auston Matthews wants to be on a winner, as does William Nylander. The simple math would say go get the coach who won a Stanley Cup a few years ago in Vegas and don’t look back.  

The job of NHL leadership, however, is far from simple.  

The more I’ve been thinking about this, the more my mind has set on one man: David Carle. 

Carle has coached the University of Denver to three NCAA D1 National Championships since 2022, and if that isn’t impressive enough for you, is a two-time gold medal-winning Head Coach of Team USA’s World Junior Championship squads in 2024 and 2025. You would be exceptionally hard-pressed to find a better coach outside of the NHL anywhere in the world. 

You don’t become as successful as Carle has been as a leader of young men without being incredibly decisive. Carle reportedly removed himself from the Chicago Blackhawks’ search for a Head Coach last spring, and has surely passed on other opportunities the past few years. That Blackhawks’ team, on paper, with its potentially generational talent Connor Bedard, strong goaltending from Spencer Knight, and a plethora of top young players and draft picks to come the next several years, looked like an ideal landing space for someone who has made his name working with young hockey players. If he’s going to take his family and leave a situation where he could be the next Red Berenson, Carle has made it clear he will be measured and thoughtful. It has to be the right place and the right time. 

Is that Toronto? 

Right now, no. 1,141 words from now? Perhaps. Thankfully, Toronto has reached out to Carle (and Chayka has passed another sanity test from the fans and Toronto media). 

Why this makes sense for Carle, rebuild edition 

Let’s say that Austin Matthews goes to the Leafs in July and says that he’s done. No longer is he the Captain, and he gives them a list of teams (or team) that he’s willing to waive his full no move clause to go to. We must hope that this is not the team that told Chris Johnson they would give Toronto more for Matthew Knies than they would for Matthews, and we hope that Chayka and co. remember the simple negotiating axiom of just because he wants to go there, doesn’t mean I actually have to do it. If there’s only one team on the list, Chayka must ride that bit of leverage as hard as he can to extract as much value as possible from said team. That may be three, four, or in a perfect world where the acquiring team remembers the Matthews who won an MVP award and three Rocket Richard trophies, peaking at 69 goals – five assets. If Matthews leaves, Chayka must maximize that return. Maybe hide the MRIs? 

From here, Nylander is out the door, then Chayka should be able to get three or four quality assets for him, depending on the level of those assets. And no, I’m not saying Toronto would get the same value for Nylander as Vancouver extracted for Quinn Hughes. At the same time, if handled properly it shouldn’t be too far off. 

Depending on how far you want to go down this road, Chayka could trade any of John Tavares, top defensemen Jake McCabe, Chris Tanev (all three of whom would need to waive their no move clauses to be dealt), and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, along with the much-maligned Brandon Carlo. 

If such a sell-off were to happen, in this scenario you are likely drafting Gavin McKenna, you’re building around McKenna, Matthew Knies (hard no, no deal, 0% chance, lose my number), Easton Cowan, and hopefully big RHD Ben Danford, who recently stepped right into the playoffs with Toronto’s AHL team and held his own.

From Carle’s perspective, this becomes the NHL version of what he knows: a young team with younger players that need to learn both how to adult and be built into a winning team. You’re asking for a five-or-six-year contract, six if I were Carle, real money, not that first-time HC money ($5M/year, and if allowed it goes up to $6M/year if we win the Stanley Cup in any year other than the last year, though his agent could be even more ruthless about it) and ensuring there is an understanding from all parties that there will be no rash decisions. This will take time; this will take years. The same as incoming GM’s often tell owners they need five years to rebuild the team, Carle gets that same five-to-six-year window (whichever Carle prefers, he has the leverage) to do his part with the players that are put on the ice in front of him. If the Leafs’ top current players want to leave, so be it. He builds from the ground up, as he has before. 

Why this makes sense for Carle, retool edition 

Matthews decides to stay, which means Nylander decides to stay. All the core pieces remain, as does the opportunity to draft a top young player who could play in the Leafs’ top-9 this coming season. Chris Tanev, the lynchpin of Toronto’s defense, is back healthy (I know, he’s legit one wrong move away from retirement; for now, though, he will be ready come September), and the Leafs have three potentially strong goaltenders, which gives them options and leverage. There’s a lot to work with here for someone committed to staying long-term. 

One way for Toronto to convince Matthews to stay and for Carle to get in AM34’s good graces is to save him from the level of defensive responsibility he had under Craig Berube. Everyone in Toronto’s media sphere has been screaming about this for months, so let’s dig deeper and find out the truth about this topic.   

In 2023-24, Sheldon Keefe’s final season as the Leafs’ Head Coach, Matthews scored 69 goals in 81 games, and though he didn’t win the MVP as he did in 2021-22, there was a very real argument to make that scoring at such a dominant, all-time level should have earned him his 2nd MVP award. Look at how many offensive & neutral zone starts Matthews had that season: a combined 492 (six per game), against 126 defensive zone starts (1.55 per game). Due to injury, in the past two seasons Matthews dropped to 67 and 60 games, respectively. Under recently fired Head Coach Craig Berube, despite playing 14 and 21 less games, Matthews had the same amount of defensive zone starts in 67 games and only two less than the previous two years in 60 games. He was close to two D-zone starts per game in 24-25 and over two per game last year, 25% more than under Keefe. In 24-25, his offensive/neutral zone per game stayed around the same, and this year it actually went up to 6.5 per game.