Maple Leafs hire Marc Savard as assistant coach

The Toronto Maple Leafs announced Sunday that former NHL player Marc Savard has been hired as an assistant coach under new head coach Craig Berube.

Savard joins a coaching staff that includes associate coach Lane Lamberg, assistant coach Mike Van Ryn, goalie coach Curtis Sanford and video coaches Jordan Bean and Sam Kim.

Savard spent the last season with the Calgary Flames as an assistant coach. Before that, he was the head coach of the Windsor Spitfires between 2021-22 and 2022-23, where he led the Spits to an 88-35-8-5 record and an appearance in the OHL Finals in 2022. He first got behind an NHL bench in 2019-20 with the St. Louis Blues.

As a player, Savard enjoyed a successful 13-year career, scoring 207 goals and 499 assists for 706 points in 807 career regular-season games with the Flames, New York Rangers, Atlanta Thrashers and Boston Bruins.

After bouncing up and down between the Rangers and their AHL affiliate, the Hartford Wolf Pack, Savard was traded to the Flames, where he would spend nearly four seasons developing his offensive game. After he was traded to the Thrashers, Savard became a point-per-game player, recording 52 points in 45 games in 2003-04.

After the 2004-05 lockout, Savard’s production skyrocketed, scoring 28 goals and 69 assists for 97 points in 2005-06. He would sign a four-year, $20 million with the Bruins ahead of the 2006-07 season, and his offense picked up where it left off in Atlanta, producing seasons of 96, 78 and 88 points.

In March 2010, he suffered a major concussion that sidelined him for the rest of the regular season, but would briefly return to the lineup in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, where he scored an overtime-winning goal against the Philadelphia Flyers.

He missed most of the 2010-11 regular season with post-concussion syndrome, and after 25 games, suffered a second concussion in January, eventually leading to him being shutdown for the remainder of the season. The Bruins would end up winning the Stanley Cup that season, and despite not playing enough games, the team petitioned to have his name engraved on the trophy.

Drafted in the fourth round of the 1995 NHL Entry Draft by the Rangers, Savard spent four seasons with the Oshawa Generals, where he would score 413 points in 238 regular-season games.