Maple Leafs hire Guy Boucher, Mike Van Ryn as assistant coaches

The Toronto Maple Leafs hired Guy Boucher and Mike Van Ryn as assistant coaches, the team announced Thursday.

Head coach Sheldon Keefe’s coaching staff is now filled out for the upcoming season. Keefe confirmed that Boucher would be responsible for coaching the team’s power play while Van Ryn would lead the team’s defense.

Current assistant coach Dean Chynoweth will focus on Toronto’s penalty kill, while fellow assistant coach Manny Malhotra will move from behind the bench to be the Leafs’ “eyes in the sky.”

Toronto also retained goalie coach Curtis Sanford, video and coaching coordinator Sam Kim and video coordinator and statistical analyst Jordan Bean.

The Maple Leafs needed to round out its coaching staff behind Keefe after former assistant coach Spencer Carberry left to become the head coach of the Washington Capitals.

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Boucher, 51, has NHL head coaching experience after breaking through with the Tampa Bay Lightning from 2010-11 to 2012-13. In his first season as head coach of the Lightning, Boucher guided the team to the postseason and were eventually eliminated in the Eastern Conference Finals. He was dismissed in 2012-13 and replaced by Jon Cooper.

Boucher then coached Bern SC in Switzerland for three seasons before returning to the NHL in 2016-17 when he was hired by the Ottawa Senators.

Similar to his first year in Tampa Bay, Boucher guided the Senators to the third round of the playoffs and were knocked out in seven games by the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was Boucher’s only winning season in Ottawa before he was fired in 2019 and replaced by Marc Crawford.

The Quebec native was reportedly a finalist to become Toronto’s head coach before Mike Babcock was hired in 2015.

Van Ryn, 44, of London, Ont., has spent the last five seasons as an assistant with the St. Louis Blues. He won a Stanley Cup with the organization in 2019. The former defenceman was a head coach in the AHL (Tucson Roadrunners) and the OHL (Kitchener Rangers) and qualified for the playoffs once with each team.

Van Ryn played his last NHL season with the Maple Leafs in 2008-09, scoring 11 points in 27 games.