The Toronto Maple Leafs announced yesterday that assistant coach Guy Boucher would not be back behind their bench next season. This comes a little over a month after the team fired head coach Sheldon Keefe to replace him with Craig Berube. Even though his tenure with Toronto was short-lived, Boucher has a wealth of experience, and it will be interesting to see if he finds another assignment elsewhere in the league. Let’s look at his career and where he could potentially land.
Boucher Before the Maple Leafs
The Notre-Dame-du-Lac, Quebec native spent 13 years coaching teams at various levels of minor hockey. An assistant coach with McGill University in the 1996-1997 season, he joined the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies coaching staff in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (now the Quebec Maritime Junior Hockey League) as an assistant coach before being offered a head coaching position with the Lac-Saint-Louis Lions in the Development Hockey League Midget AAA. He remained in that circuit for three seasons before returning to the QMJHL as an assistant coach with the Rimouski Oceanic. Then, he got the head coaching role with the Drummondville Voltigeurs and led them to the league championship in 2008-2009.
He caught the eye of the Montreal Canadiens organization, which appointed him head coach for the Hamilton Bulldogs. He would only remain at the helm in Hamilton for a single season, being named the American Hockey League coach of the year after leading his men to a 52-17-11 record, even though many of his best players were called up by the Canadiens. The Bulldogs also traveled to Scotland to compete and win the Gardiner Cup that season (a four-team weekend tournament featuring the Bulldogs, the Toronto Marlies, the Belfast Giants, and the Edinburgh Capitals). His impressive first professional hockey coaching season caught the eye of a couple of NHL teams. He turned down an offer to coach the Columbus Blue Jackets before accepting the Tampa Bay Lightning’s offer.
Boucher was behind Tampa Bay’s bench for two and half seasons, keeping a 97-78-20 record and taking the team to the Eastern Conference Final in 2011. They then lost the best-of-seven series 4-3 against the Boston Bruins. That year, a 35-year-old Martin St. Louis led the Lightning on points with 99, eight more than 20-year-old Steven Stamkos. After his dismissal by Tampa Bay, he coached the SC Bern in Switzerland for part of three seasons before returning to the NHL to coach the Ottawa Senators for two and half seasons.
After being fired by the Senators during the 2018-2019 season, Boucher stopped coaching and appeared on various panels on Quebec’s premier sports network RDS. His comments were always well thought out and communicated. Unlike many RDS panelists, he had no bias; he commented as a hockey expert and not a Canadiens fan like many former NHL players who have found work in the media often do.
Return to Coaching in Toronto
Before the 2023-2024 season, Boucher and Mike Van Ryn were hired as Sheldon Keefe’s assistant coaches. There was a vacancy on his staff after Spencer Carbery had abandoned ship to take over head coaching duties with the Washington Capitals. While there was only one vacancy, Keefe added them both since newly hired general manager Brad Treliving had asked him to put together the best staff possible to help the team win.
Boucher was tasked with focusing on the attacking side of the game and the power play. With such a potent attack as the Maple Leafs’ and a new voice running that part of the game, there was some progress during the regular season. Toronto scored 298 goals this season, an average of 3.63 goals per game (G/G), making them second to only the Colorado Avalanche in both departments. The year before, the Maple Leafs had put 280 goals on the board with a G/G of 3.41. There was, therefore, an improvement in the offensive output.
As for the power play, after the 2022-2023 season, it had a 26% success rate. With Boucher this season, it went down to 24%. Not a huge drop as they were still the seventh-best team in the league in that department, but they were second the season before his hire. Furthermore, the power play efficiency plummeted in the playoffs. In a seven-game series against the Bruins, the Maple Leafs only struck once, for a 4.8% success rate.
Perhaps, it was the lack of satisfaction with those numbers that led to his dismissal or, it could just be that Berube wants to hire and use the assistants of his choice, which is understandable.
What’s Next for Boucher?
Could Boucher go back into the Canadiens’ organization after they had given him his first professional coaching job? With 232 goals this season, Montreal finished 26th in the league for an average of 2.83 goals scored by game, numbers that could certainly use some help.
As for the power play, it had a 17.5% success rate, up from 16.1% last season. It is an improvement but a modest one, to say the least, and I believe it’s time for the Canadiens to move on from Alex Burrows. He’s had more than enough opportunities to right this ship, but he hasn’t. Furthermore, Boucher also has a master’s in sports psychology, which could be helpful in Montreal. His field of study might help him guide players looking to bounce back, like Josh Anderson, for instance, or players who need to accept a new, diminished role, such as Brendan Gallagher.
Could Martin St-Louis make room on his staff for his former coach? Stranger things have happened, and anything that could give the Canadiens an edge would be a welcome addition. As for the Maple Leafs, they’ve recently added Lane Lambert as an associate coach, but Boucher’s departure could mean there’s another addition to come on Berube’s staff.
Should Boucher fail to find another coaching job, there will always be room for him at RDS, given how well his first turn of duty went. Meanwhile, in May, the Calgary Flames announced they were not retaining Marc Savard’s services and he once was Berube’s assistant in St. Louis, could there be a reunion in Toronto?
