The Toronto Maple Leafs trade of offseason priorities is moving fast, and John Chayka said the club is in the final phases of hiring a coach. He said a decision should come in the next several days, putting the next major move for a team that finished 32-36-14 on a short clock.
Chayka framed the coaching search as part of a broader organizational shift after Toronto missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time since 2016-17 and lost its last seven games. The change follows a season that ended with Craig Berube’s dismissal on May 13 and a front office overhaul that brought in Chayka and Mats Sundin on May 3.
Chayka on the final phases
“I think we are on the final phases at this stage,” Chayka said Tuesday. “It's been a pretty thorough process so far and we've taken our time with it.”
He added that recent in-person meetings have moved the search toward a decision window. “We've had some in-person meetings recently and we are getting down to decision time, so it should be in the next, you know, several days.”
That timeline matters because the coaching hire sits at the center of Toronto’s offseason plan. Berube went 84-62-18 in two seasons after replacing Sheldon Keefe, but the club’s finish left no room to treat the bench as a standalone problem. Chayka said last month, “We didn't make this decision in a vacuum,” and called it “a bigger picture decision and it's not just about the coach.”
Berube exit and roster reset
The coaching search is unfolding alongside a roster reshuffle. On Tuesday, Toronto traded Joseph Woll and Simon Benoit to the Philadelphia Flyers for Samuel Ersson, Emil Andrae and a third-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft.
Chayka said the move was tied to flexibility and to the kind of offseason the Maple Leafs are trying to build. “Mats and I have been working pretty hard now for the last several weeks coming up with what we think is a pretty comprehensive offseason plan, and this is a move we feel that is a part of that,” he said. “There's lots of work to be done with the roster.”
Ersson and Andrae are each arbitrational-eligible and can become restricted free agents on July 1, another layer in a summer that now includes a coaching hire, a goalie decision and a draft asset arriving in the same deal. Chayka also said, “What we liked about this opportunity is that it allowed us to create some flexibility.”
Toronto's offseason pressure
The Maple Leafs now have the No. 1 pick at the 2026 Upper Deck NHL Draft on June 26 at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, giving the organization another major decision point after a season that ended 32-36-14. Chayka said the roster and goalie pipeline still need work, including a meeting with Curtis McElhinney on what the crease setup should look like.
For Toronto, the next few days carry more weight than a routine coaching search. The front office has already changed, the coach is gone, and the roster has started to move; the next hire will show how the Maple Leafs want the rest of this offseason to look.
