{"id":721452,"date":"2026-06-07T17:38:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-07T17:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721452\/"},"modified":"2026-06-07T17:38:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-07T17:38:09","slug":"new-nhl-rumors-on-surprise-target-eyed-by-maple-leafs-for-hc-job-amid-latest-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/721452\/","title":{"rendered":"New NHL Rumors on Surprise Target Eyed by Maple Leafs for HC Job amid Latest Search"},"content":{"rendered":"

Retired forward Joe Pavelski is a candidate in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ coaching search, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

One source described Pavelski to Friedman as a “Martin St. Louis-style candidate.”<\/p>\n

St. Louis took over as the Montreal Canadiens interim coach midway through 2021-22 before getting the job permanently the following offseason.<\/p>\n

Given his inexperience, St. Louis’ hiring was met with some skepticism, but the decision has worked out for Montreal. The Canadiens made the playoffs in 2024-25 and advanced to the conference finals this year.<\/p>\n

Pavelski spent 18 years in the league as a player and retired with 476 goals and 592 assists. He was highly respected around the league and did enough on the ice to warrant Hall of Fame conversations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hiring somebody with Pavelski’s resume \u2014 or lack thereof \u2014 is always a risk, though, and that’s especially true when he’d be taking over the Maple Leafs, an Original Six franchise with massive expectations almost every year.<\/p>\n

Of course, Toronto’s interest in Pavelski doesn’t mean he’s a lock for the job. Newly hired general manager John Chayka might simply be covering all his bases and seeing whether there might be a savvy solution outside of the usual suspects.<\/p>\n

The Leafs have reportedly conducted<\/a> around 15 interviews virtually, with Peter Laviolette and Patrick Roy two of the notable interviewees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retired forward Joe Pavelski is a candidate in the Toronto Maple Leafs’ coaching search, according to Sportsnet’s Elliotte…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":721453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":["post-721452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721452","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=721452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/721453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=721452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=721452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=721452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}