Maple Leafs fire Craig Berube after last-place Atlantic finish

Craig Berube’s Toronto tenure ended with the same blunt verdict that defined the Maple Leafs’ season: not enough, not fast enough, and not at the level this franchise demands. Toronto fired Berube on Wednesday after a 2025-26 collapse that left the club last in the Atlantic Division and out of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2016.

The numbers explain why this became a wider accountability story, not just a coaching change. Berube went 84-62-18 over two seasons, including a 108-point first year that put Toronto first in the Atlantic Division at 52-26-4. Then came the free fall. The Maple Leafs finished 32-36-14, eighth in the Atlantic and next to last in the Eastern Conference, and were eliminated on April 3 after a 4-1 loss to the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center.

That collapse ended the NHL’s longest active playoff streak, a nine-season run that had stretched back to 2016-17. For a team that still has not won the Stanley Cup since 1967, the failure carried more weight than a single disappointing spring. It pointed back to a franchise that keeps falling short despite repeated changes in personnel, voice and structure.

Toronto had already started reshaping its hockey department before Berube was dismissed. Brad Treliving was fired on March 31 after the playoff miss became unavoidable. On May 11, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment brought in John Chayka as general manager and Mats Sundin as senior executive adviser of hockey operations, a move Keith Pelley framed as a fresh start and an organizational reset. Berube’s firing now makes that message clearer: the club is not blaming one coach for everything, but it is also not excusing him from a season that unraveled on his watch.

That leaves Toronto where it has been too often in the Auston Matthews era, searching for the right mix of roster construction, front-office direction and bench leadership. Berube gave the Maple Leafs a strong opening act, but the second season exposed how fragile the whole setup had become. The next coach will inherit not just a lineup under pressure, but a franchise still trying to prove it can build a team that survives the regular season and stands up to the postseason.