A familiar face is returning to Toronto.
The Maple Leafs announced on Wednesday that they are hiring Jim Hiller to be their next head coach.
Hiller was previously the head coach of the Los Angeles Kings when he got the job full time before the 2024-2025 season, a job he remained in until he was fired on March 1 after an 8-1 loss to Edmonton.
Hiller was hired as an assistant on with the Kings for the 2022-23 season and then received his first head coaching job on an interim basis when Los Angeles fired Todd McLellan in February 2024.
Hiller posted a 93-58-24 over his combined three seasons in Los Angeles.
Before his time in Los Angeles, Hiller was previously an assistant with the Maple Leafs from 2015-19, after which he took the same role for the Islanders for three seasons.
Hiller will head back to a place famously difficult to both play and coach in. General manager John Chayka’s confidence in Hiller comes from his relationships with players.
“What separated Jim was that the player [who] had been around him really valued who he is as a person,” Chayka said Wednesday.
“They really felt like they could trust [him] and that he had their back. They felt like he was committed to making them the best versions of themselves, and that he was a coach that was going to be player-centric, but also a coach who pushed, who wanted the best out of people, and he was creating an environment that brought that out.”
There seems to be confidence that Hiller can bring the Leafs back into contention. Toronto missed the playoffs last year for the first time since captain Auston Matthews was drafted first overall in 2016.
“I’m not here to tear up the roster. There’s good players there, and they’ve shown that in the league,” Hiller said.
“It’s bigger [in Toronto], there’s more volume of media, there’s no question…I know it’s a big job, and it’s a big market, but it’s not something that I think I’m going to personally have to change much to deal with.”
The Leafs went 32-36 last season, falling short of the postseason for the first time since 2016.
The announcement comes shortly after news broke of Toronto’s trade with Philadelphia, where they sent goalie Joseph Woll and defenseman Simon Benoit to the Flyers in exchange for goalie Samuel Ersson, defenseman Emil Andrae and a third-round pick in this year’s draft.
