{"id":705011,"date":"2026-05-30T20:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/705011\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T20:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:59:08","slug":"maple-leafs-notes-coaching-search-nylander-cowan-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/705011\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs Notes: Coaching Search, Nylander, Cowan \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n By Brian La Rose<\/a> |
\n at May 30, 2026 11:49 am <\/p>\n

While it remains unclear which external head coaching candidates Maple Leafs GM John Chayka has spoken with so far, it appears there are a pair of internal options for the position as well.\u00a0 In a recent appearance on The FAN Hockey Show (video link<\/a>), Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman reported that Derek Lalonde has been interviewed for the job while he believes that Mike Van Ryn has also been interviewed.\u00a0 Lalonde spent parts of three seasons running the bench in Detroit from 2022-23 through 2024-25, leading the team to an 89-86-23 record.\u00a0 On the other hand, Van Ryn\u2019s head coaching experience is rather limited, just 2015-16 with OHL Kitchener and 2017-18 with AHL Tucson, making him a less likely candidate for the role.\u00a0 There remains no timeline in place for when Toronto might hire their next bench boss but they\u2019d likely want the hire in place before next month\u2019s draft.<\/p>\n

More from the Maple Leafs:<\/p>\n

At a time when there has been plenty of speculation of how Toronto could shake up its roster, winger William Nylander<\/a> made it clear in a video<\/a> on his YouTube channel earlier this week that he has no desire to leave. The 30-year-old has spent 11 seasons with the Maple Leafs already and has six years left on his contract, one that carries an AAV of $11.5MM and has full trade protection.\u00a0 Nylander is coming off a career year in terms of points per game as his mark of 1.22 was a personal best, although he missed 17 games due to injury.\u00a0 Barring the team embarking on a longer-term rebuild, it\u2019s hard to see a scenario where Nylander is asked to consider waiving his trade protection but the veteran has made his intentions clear preemptively.
\nWinger Easton Cowan<\/a> wasn\u2019t in the lineup on Friday as the Marlies continue their playoff run in the minors. Speaking postgame, head coach Jon Gruden indicated to reporters including Terry Koshan of the Toronto Sun<\/a> that the rookie is dealing with an upper-body injury.\u00a0 It\u2019s more of a maintenance thing but his status for Monday\u2019s game is uncertain.\u00a0 Cowan sits ninth in AHL playoff scoring with five goals and four assists in 14 contests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Brian La Rose | at May 30, 2026 11:49 am While it remains unclear which external head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705012,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,343013,343014,343015,575,85,2370,54989],"class_list":["post-705011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-derek-lalonde","tag-easton-cowan","tag-mike-van-ryn","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-william-nylander"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=705011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}