Could Ken Hitchcock Eventually End Up In Toronto?

The Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke has said that Ron Wilson’s job is safe and he will be the coach for the rest of the year.

Burke has not said that Ron Wilson will be here for years to come or that he is the coach of the future or anything along those lines.

If fact, it seems that Burke has all but shied away from any questioning that even leads down that road.

Ron Wilson is coaching USA’s Olympic team and Brian Burke is the one who put him there.

Burke won’t fire Wilson with only 20 some odd games left in the season post Olympic break, though depending on team USA’s showing in the tournament, Wilson could write himself right out of the picture in Toronto.

Leafs Nation has pointed a finger at Wilson, wondering if he might be the wrong man for the job since the whole dodge-ball team building exercise at the beginning of the season in an attempt to kick start the Leafs.

With the newly fired Ken Hitchcock in the market for a new job after being ousted from Columbus, one can’t help but wonder what a Ken Hitchcock run Toronto Maple Leafs team might be like.

Ron Wilson has never had much success in the postseason and really hasn’t won anything.

Hitchcock on the other hand has won a Stanley Cup with Dallas beating Buffalo and then led them back the next year to the Stanley Cup finals losing to the Devils; he’s obviously had postseason success.

While with the Kamloops Blazers, Hitchcock’s record was 291-115-15 so he can obviously work with and get the best out of young players. Toronto is now the second youngest team in the NHL with an average age of 27.2 years just behind the Oilers whose average age is 27.

Hitch is known as a “hard ass” coach and with the new acquisitions and the young guys expected to be in the line up in the near future, a coach of his respectability around the league and with players might be a perfect fit in Toronto.

Wilson has fairly recently publicly called out Toronto’s big offseason pick up Phil Kessel. The one guy on the team as a coach you don’t want to throw under the bus is the new stud, especially on a team that isn’t expected to go anywhere.

Wilson doesn’t seem to know what to do with this team as he is supposed to have one of the better special teams coaching strategies. But the Leafs sit last in both power play and penalty killing.

It doesn’t take a hell of a lot of talent to kill penalties but it does take hard work and motivation which Wilson doesn’t seem to be able to bring to Toronto.

All in all I don’t see anything happening right away but with a top quality coach like Hitchcock on the market Wilson may be clutching his clip board a tad tighter during the rest of the season and Burke might think about seizing an opportunity while it presents itself.

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