Say what you want about new Toronto Maple Leafs general manager John Chayka, but one thing that can be universally agreed upon is the fact that he has completely sealed any leaks to the media.

Amidst speculation that the Leafs would be bringing back Craig Berube as head coach, Chayka met with him and let him go on the following Monday. While all of the media’s favourite trade rumours circulated around Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies, Chayka instead quietly traded Joseph Woll to the Philadelphia Flyers for a young, cost-controlled defenceman and a draft pick. And on Wednesday, they announced the hiring of Jim Hiller as head coach despite not a single person having linked the two parties to each other.

On the surface level, the hiring of Hiller is questionable at best, especially if you ask a Los Angeles Kings fan. He was hired in relief of Todd McClellan during the 2023-24 season and let go during the 2025-26 season. His one full season saw the Kings finish second in the Atlantic Division with a record of 48-25-9. Although, the good vibes from that season came to a screeching halt in the playoffs against the Edmonton Oilers. Not only did the Kings lose in five games to their longtime playoff kryptonite, but Hiller also made an extremely questionable coach’s challenge that cost the Kings Game 3.

The following year, the Kings stumbled out of the gates and failed to capitalize on an exceptionally weak Pacific Division. By the time Hiller was fired on March 1, they were fourth-last in the league in goals for per game (2.53), sixth-last in power play percentage (16.3%) and fourth-last in penalty kill percentage (75.7%), and they remained within striking distance of a playoff spot only because they shared the league lead in overtime losses (14) with the Vegas Golden Knights. It was bad enough that the promotion of D.J. Smith following his firing seemed like a legitimate promotion, even though the Kings were swept in the playoffs and Smith didn’t return as head coach.

So, why was Hiller viewed as the best candidate for the job to Chayka and company? Given all that we know about why Berube’s tenure as head coach crashed and burned, everything about Hiller’s Kings team last year should scream red flag for a Leafs team that desperately needs to rediscover their offensive identity.

Based on Chayka and Hiller’s media availabilities on Wednesday, it seems like it comes down to two things: good underlying numbers and personality.

It’s no secret that the 2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs season was a grind. Between a slew of injuries and a dramatic fall-off in offensive production, it was far from the high-octane Leafs we’ve become accustomed to seeing every year. And even in Berube’s first season with the team, where they finished with the best record of the Auston Matthews era and won the Atlantic Division for the first time, the underlying numbers told a different story. It ended up being foreshadowing for the disaster that was the 2025-26 season. Jim Hiller’s Kings, on the other hand, were the opposite. Despite a sheer inability to score goals and a lack of adjustments, the Kings were close to the top of the league in most possession categories.

The mention of good underlying numbers is sure to get an eye roll from a good portion of the fanbase if the results aren’t there on paper. For years, we heard the same things with Kyle Dubas as general manager — ‘they’re a great team, sure they only won a single playoff round, but their underlyings were good and heavily suggest that the team just got unlucky!’. The reality is that when you’re in a Cup drought as long as the Leafs are and still haven’t made the Conference Final with the most talented core in the franchise’s history, good analytics lose their novelty pretty quickly. But we saw firsthand that the ‘hockey man’ mentality that Brad Treliving and Craig Berube brought to the team didn’t work, and the Leafs clearly want to return to their roots in that sense. We knew this when Keith Pelley said that he wanted the next general manager of the team to be ‘data centric’. If nothing else, that’s something that Chayka and Hiller will align on.

“As far as using data, information, analytics, I don’t know what the right word for any of that is, I am very open to it,” Hiller told reporters via Zoom on Wednesday. “I’ve long thought that as difficult of a game as we play and try to measure and understand a little bit better than we have in the past is a challenge, but a worthy challenge.”

Hiller also noted the fact that he and Chayka will see eye-to-eye on this topic, which is something that the Leafs have struggled with between their general manager and coaches.

“In my experience, they just help you have better discussions and point you in better directions, and I look forward to that because I believe that’s also a strength of mine…I’ve had such an interest and I know that John has it with his background, I think that’s something that’s really easy for us to communicate about.”

The fact that Hiller ran a 1-3-1 system with the Kings also raised some red flags, but Hiller wouldn’t confirm that he would be using that same system in Toronto. More than anything, he said, priority number one is to get his team playing a system that they can have fun playing in.

“I think there’s a pretty standard template across the league that all coaches play with and I don’t necessarily believe that one is better than the other,” Hiller said. “I think really, and I’ll draw it right back to the spirit of the team and the commitment, anybody does everything together and feels good about it, I think there’s room to play different styles within that. That’s not job one. Job one is to be able to get the team to play and thrive and to be excited about playing whatever style and system there is. So, you know, I’ve done a bunch of different things.”

One thing became clear from the press conference, and that’s the fact that the Leafs clearly believe that the morale around the team in 2025-26 was not good and needs improving. Chayka noted that Hiller’s personality and reviews from around the organization set him apart from the other candidates. Matthews, William Nylander, and Morgan Rielly all played under Hiller as an assistant coach between 2015 and 2019.

“What separated Jim from the other candidates was, the players that had been around him really valued him as a person,” Chayka said. “They really felt like they could trust him and that he had their back. They felt like he was committed to making them the best versions of themselves, that he was a coach that was going to be player-centric, but also, he wanted the best out of people and was creating an environment that brought that out.”

The hiring of Hiller at the stage the Leafs are currently at is a risky one. His results on paper don’t inspire confidence, and like it or not, they’re taking a gamble on the Kings’ underlying numbers and the fact that he’s a familiar face around the organization. That said, the past is all he can be judged by right now. If results follow when the season starts, he’ll be praised as such, the same way he’ll be criticized if they slump out of the gate and don’t look any different from the Berube Leafs of last season.

The Leafs have taken the safe route from a personnel standpoint for the past few years. When Dubas left, Treliving was the most accessible replacement and was hired almost immediately. When Sheldon Keefe was fired, Berube was the most accessible replacement and because he had a Cup, not many people questioned the hire. Going with a pair of gambles in Chayka and Hiller to lead them into arguably the most crucial point of the current era could be a gigantic backfire, but if it works out, it’s going to make a lot of people eat their words, media and fans included.

All in all, the next 365 days in Leaf land are going to be absolutely fascinating to watch unfold, and even that word doesn’t do it justice.