The Calgary Flames have mutually agreed to part ways with Marc Savard, which means he may be behind the Toronto Maple Leafs bench next season.
Toronto Maple Leafs fans may be familiar with Marc Savard for his days in the Atlantic Division with the Boston Bruins, but they may be less familiar with the fact that he was an assistant coach in Calgary last year. The one reason why you may not have realized that he was a coach with the Flames last year was because their team was awful, and he didn’t seem to help.
Savard joined Calgary after having a lot of success in the Ontario Hockey League with the Windsor Spitfires, but after one year of work, the Flames power-play (which he led) took a step back. In 2022-23, the team’s power-play was 19th in the NHL, but fell to 26th under his duties.
You could put all of the blame on Savard’s shoulders for that drop-off, but at the end of the day, the Flames offense wasn’t very good to begin with. As a coach, you can only do so much with the players you have, so it’s not that shocking that their power-play was bad, finishing in the bottom-half of goals scored in the NHL. Regardless of who coached the team last year, it’s safe to assume that would have happened anyway.
Expect Savard to Be Named Toronto Mapel Leafs Assistant Coach
Although the Leafs finished with the eighth best power-play last season, their 1-for-21 stinker in the First Round should mean the end to Guy Boucher’s career in Toronto, opening the door for Savard.
The reason why Savard has been linked to the Leafs is because of his ties to Craig Berube. Savard served as Berube’s assistant coach with the St. Louis Blues during the 2019-20 season, and had a ton of success. The pandemic shut down the season early but prior to the stoppage, the Blues had the third best power-play in the league.
Although it’s easy to point at his work with the Flames last year as a bad decision to hire him, he’s clearly shown that he can do good work when he has good players, but more importantly, his relationship with Berube will help get him this job. Speaking of former coaches connected to Berube, current assistant coach Mike Van Ryn also coached alongside him with the Blues, so he probably has a good chance to stick around.
You can blame Boucher for the Leafs losing, based on their power-play results, but you can’t blame Van Ryn for anything. Defensively, Toronto looked better than ever in the playoffs and did a fantastic job with the mediocre defensive-group they had. If they can secure a top-pairing defenseman, his job will get even easier.
Don’t be shocked if Savard is hired next week, as I’m sure Berube would love to get his entire staff settled as soon as possible, especially before the NHL Draft and Free Agency.
