The Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t take long to replace Marc Savard on their bench, as the team announced they’ve promoted Steve Sullivan to assistant coach.
Sullivan joins the Leafs bench from the AHL’s Toronto Marlies. He’ll replace Savard, who was running the power play, which was ranked last in the entire NHL at just over 13% efficiency. Once Savard was let go on December 22, Brad Treliving made it clear the team wasn’t hiring anyone externally, and that’s exactly the case as Sullivan gets promoted up the organizational ranks.
Sullivan used to be a shifty winger in the NHL, with over 1,000 games of experience, including parts of four seasons with the Maple Leafs. He was hired by the Marlies back in August 2024, and had spent some time with the Arizona Coyotes organization.
Craig Berube hired Savard as ‘his guy’ a couple of years ago, and unfortunately, three days before Christmas the Leafs decided to make a change. While Treliving isn’t happy with where his team sits heading into the new year, he did give Berube a vote of confidence, and suggested there would be no head coaching change in season.
“We’ve got to continue to make our team better. We’ve got areas that we’ve got to get better in. It’s not lost on us where the team’s at. We live it every day. But I think we’ve got a real good coach. And that’s not to say we don’t change some things, tweak some things. We’ve done that over the course of the last couple of weeks.”
The Leafs continue to close out 2025 on Saturday against the Ottawa Senators, and expect to see Steve Sullivan behind the bench.
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