Maple Leafs fire assistant coach Marc Savard

The struggling Toronto Maple Leafs are making a move behind the bench.

Assistant coach Marc Savard has been relieved of his duties by the Leafs as the team looks to shake things up.

One of Savard’s main duties as an assistant was to coordinate the Leafs’ power play, which sits last in the league at 13.3 per cent.

The Leafs power play prior to Savard’s arrival operated near the top of the league during the regular season. In the first season with Savard in charge, it operated at a 24.8 per cent rate in the regular season, which was ninth in the NHL.

The Leafs hired Savard in June 2024 when the team brought in Craig Berube as head coach. 

He was previously an assistant coach under Berube with the St. Louis Blues in 2019-20.

As a player, Savard appeared in over 800 games for the Flames, Thrashers and Bruins, scoring 207 goals and 706 points.

The move comes one day after the Maple Leafs went winless on a road trip, going 0-10 on the power play. In recent games, the Maple Leafs’ biggest stars have been split into two power play units, with Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies anchoring one group and John Tavares and William Nylander on the other.

The Maple Leafs are 15-15-5 this season, with 35 points that is one more than the Columbus Blue Jackets for last in the Eastern Conference. They close the pre-Christmas schedule with an afternoon game against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday (4 p.m. ET on Sportsnet Ontario and Sportsnet+).