TORONTO (AP) — The Toronto Maple Leafs hired Craig Berube as coach on Friday, bringing in someone with Stanley Cup experience to try to end the longest championship drought in the NHL’s toughest hockey market.
Berube coached the St. Louis Blues to the Cup in 2019. The Maple Leafs have not won since 1967, when the league had only six teams.
Toronto president Brendan Shanahan and general manager Brad Treliving quickly hired Berube to replace Sheldon Keefe, who was fired after another early playoff exit. The Leafs lost in the first round for the fourth time in five years under Keefe, during a stretch in which they won just one series.
Berube, 58, led the Blues to the playoffs five times in seven seasons and won five series. The Blues, who promoted Berube midseason to win the only title in franchise history, fired him in December.
This is his third job as an NHL head coach after two seasons with Philadelphia from 2013 to 2015. He is the third coach of the Maple Leafs since the team assembled the core group of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares, following Keefe and Mike Babcock.
Berube, affectionately known as “Chief” because of his First Nations heritage, began his coaching career after playing 1,143 games in the league from 1987 to 2003. That included half a season with the Leafs in 1991-92 before he was traded to Calgary as part of the nine-player trade that brought Doug Gilmour to Toronto.
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The Associated Press
