Breadcrumb Trail Links
SportsHockeyNHLToronto Maple Leafs Get the latest from Lance Hornby straight to your inbox Sign Up
Published Dec 22, 2025 • 4 minute read
You can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.
Assistant coach Marc Savard was relieved of his duties by the Toronto Maple Leafs on Dec. 22, 2025. Photo by Gavin Young /Postmedia NetworkArticle content
When the call of ‘ready, aim fire’ was heard at Scotiabank Arena on Monday, head coach Craig Berube was not the target.
Advertisement 2
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.
SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES
Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account.Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on.Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists.Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.
REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.
THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authors
Article content
Though Berube is under pressure to answer for the Maple Leafs’ fall to near the bottom of the Eastern Conference in a floundering first half, an assistant who deserves some blame took the hit.
Article content
Article content
Assistant coach Marc Savard, whose power play had slipped to a league worst 13.3 efficiency after an 0-for-11 showing in three straight road losses, was let go. No replacement was named, no further details given ahead of the team’s final pre-Christmas game, on Tuesday afternoon against Pittsburgh.
Sacking Savard was a logical move, but not an easy one with ties to Berube back to their days on the St. Louis Blues’ bench six years ago. Savard had been with Treliving’s former team in Calgary when he was hired here.
What’s the Leafs’ recent power-play history?
Under former coach Sheldon Keefe, it was often praised as ‘world class,’ with Auston Matthews’s lethal shot, Mitch Marner’s creativity through the neutral zone, John Tavares’s grunt work down low, and William Nylander’s speed.
Your Midday Sun
Thanks for signing up!
Article content
Advertisement 3
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
It has only been under 24 per cent once the past few years to now, largely under the direction of Spencer Carbery, before Keefe’s assistant went to the top job in Washington. Toronto was No. 1 at 27.3 in 2021-22 and when Marner departed, Matthew Knies joined the top group.
Why did Savard get fired?
The Leafs had struggled in every area with the man advantage, from zone entry to shot selection to net front presence and a huge drop off in opportunities didn’t help their rhythm.
Savard was without the injured Matthews for parts of last season and 2025, and while knowing Marner would be hard to replace, he couldn’t get the right defenceman/quarterback, alternating Morgan Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. The Leafs’ strategy was all too predictable to foes.
Advertisement 4
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
Savard and Berube for a time went back to what had worked for a couple of years, the five-forward formation, but defensive gaffes cost them short-handed goals. New blood such as Matias Maccelli, Max Domi and rookie Easton Cowan came and went, but the bottom line was hesitation with the puck instead of crisp movement.
And as Nylander suggested on the weekend, the Leafs’ overall issues have affected shooting confidence.
Who’s in charge of the power play now?
Berube will give an update early Tuesday afternoon, but he no doubt will have a say and has Derek Lalonde, the former Detroit Red Wings head coach, on staff this season.
Berube had been thinking of breaking up the top-heavy first group and creating two equitable quintets. That saw Tavares and Nylander separated from Matthews and Knies against the Dallas Stars on Sunday, with Nick Robertson and Domi promoted.
Advertisement 5
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
They produced some of the better looks seen so far this year, but Cowan might deserve that chance as he has some of Marner’s offensive acumen.
Will there be more changes to the hockey office?
This move will placate through Christmas and into a busy stretch of three games in four days, two of those against Atlantic rivals Detroit and Ottawa.
While MLSE CEO Keith Pelley and his bosses at Rogers will squirm at the prospect of lost post-season revenue, it has been just six months since Pelley canned Brendan Shanahan and split those presidential duties between himself and Treliving, while including more input from Berube on personnel matters.
A firing would be quite an admission of failure on Pelley’s part.
Even if Treliving wanted to try something small to jolt the roster, he can’t act until the NHL holiday roster freeze on trades and demotions expires after Boxing Day. His top players with big-ticket contracts have no-trade clauses, and the Leafs lack trade resources anyway, especially draft capital.
Advertisement 6
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
Are there too many teams to pass and not enough games to make the playoffs?
That the Eastern Conference standings are so historically close for this late in the season — possibly as few as eight points separating 14 of the 16 teams after Monday — has paused the panic button for head coaching changes through the league. Four were fired by this time last December, including Jack Adams Award winner Jim Montgomery, but none yet as eight teams began this autumn with new faces behind the bench.
Treliving hired Berube last year so there’s the loyalty factor as well as the hope, dim as it may be getting, that the Leafs can get out of this jam. Though a point out of the conference basement at 15-15-5 entering play Monday, it’s still a traversable six from a wild-card berth with 47 games to go, albeit with seven teams to get by.
Advertisement 7
This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
Article content
For all the number-crunching that says they can’t get a playoff berth, they need only average making up two points a month on the pack before mid-April. They showed signs of life Sunday in Dallas on a challenging back-to-back, and a win at home against Pittsburgh will lighten their spirits a few days.
But the ghosts of Christmas Pasts are lined up to drop by Bay Street; former GM Kyle Dubas’s Penguins, while the Red Wings and Senators are usurping Toronto as the hungriest, success-starved entries in the Atlantic Division.
Keefe’s New Jersey Devils, holding the second wild-card berth for now, will be the last game of the calendar year and a busy pre-Olympics January features two dates with Marner, his Vegas Golden Knights seven points up on Toronto in the West.
“We have the guys to do it here, it’s just putting it together,” centre Scott Laughton told reporters in Dallas. “It weighs on guys. Guys care. If it didn’t weigh, then we have a bigger problem, right?
“I’ve been through this a couple of times in my career (with the playoff-challenged Philadelphia Flyers). You have to stay on top of (defeatism). We can string something together here, but we have to do it soon. It starts with one.”
Lhornby@postmedia.com
X: @sunhornby
Article content
Share this article in your social network