Maple Leafs Name Steve Sullivan As AHL Head Coach
A long-time NHL winger is getting his first professional head coaching opportunity. On Thursday, the AHL’s Toronto Marlies, affiliate of the Maple Leafs, announced that Steve Sullivan has been named as their new head coach. He takes the place of John Gruden, who was promoted to an assistant role with the Maple Leafs earlier this week.
Sullivan was a veteran of over 1,000 NHL games as a player and got his off-ice career started with the Coyotes, one of the teams he played for. He started as a development coach but eventually moved into the front office, at one point working alongside GM John Chayka before briefly replacing him upon Chayka’s departure from the organization.
Sullivan decided to get back into coaching, joining Toronto’s organization two years ago as an assistant with the Marlies. He started in that role last season before being added to Craig Berube’s staff in the same role in late December. Now, he’ll get a chance to run the bench of the defending Calder Cup champions.
Meanwhile, the team also announced that long-time NHL blueliner (himself a veteran of over 1,000 NHL games as well) Mark Giordano has been added as a full-time assistant coach. He started last season as a development coach with the organization but was moved onto the Marlies staff to fill Sullivan’s spot on an interim basis in December. It’s clearly a role that both sides were comfortable with him continuing as he’ll now get set for his first full season of coaching.
Maple Leafs Promote Steve Sullivan To Assistant Coach
The Maple Leafs announced Friday they’ve added Steve Sullivan to the NHL bench as an assistant coach. He was already in the organization as an assistant for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies.
Sullivan, 51, fills the vacancy that opened Monday when the Leafs fired Marc Savard. Savard’s role was to manage the team’s power play; Sullivan will likely assume the same duties.
It’s a quick promotion for Sullivan, who’s only in his second year in the organization. The veteran of over 1,000 NHL games as a player assumed his first-ever high-level bench role when he was added as a Marlies assistant before the 2024-25 campaign.
That doesn’t mean Sullivan’s sat on his laurels since retiring in 2013, though. He spent multiple years in the Coyotes’ front office as a development coach and assistant general manager. He oversaw their AHL affiliate’s operations from 2017-21 and served as the club’s interim GM during their COVID bubble playoff appearance in 2020, following John Chayka’s resignation and before Bill Armstrong’s hiring.
The 5’9″ Sullivan was one of the most consistent and unheralded two-way forwards of his era. 221 of his 747 career points (29.6%) came with the man advantage. He’s now entrusted with helping to jumpstart a Toronto power play that ranks dead last in the league at 13.0%.
Maple Leafs Name Steve Sullivan AHL Assistant Coach
The Maple Leafs have hired NHL veteran Steve Sullivan as an assistant coach for their AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies, per a team announcement.
Sullivan, 50, already has a bit of a front-office track record. Soon after finishing his playing career in 2013, Sullivan joined the Coyotes as a development coach. By 2016, he’d been named their director of player development, and one year later, he was promoted to assistant general manager.
Sullivan remained in the role, making him GM of Arizona’s AHL affiliate, the Tucson Roadrunners, through Feb. 2021, when his contract was terminated. He briefly served as the Coyotes’ interim GM in 2020 after John Chayka abruptly resigned.
Since then, Sullivan has stayed in the Phoenix area, serving in coaching roles with the U-16 and U-18 Jr. Coyotes programs for the past four years. But today’s news marks Sullivan’s first time behind a bench at the professional level.
Sullivan was a unicorn as a player, succeeding in the dead puck era as a high-end two-way winger despite being just 5’9″ and 165 lbs. He played 1,011 regular-season games over 16 NHL seasons for the Predators, Blackhawks, Maple Leafs, Devils, Penguins, and Coyotes, scoring 290 goals and 457 assists for 747 points.
Toronto acquired Sullivan in a swap with New Jersey in 1997 – he was part of the return that sent franchise cornerstone Doug Gilmour south of the border. He was pretty effective in a middle-six role with the Leafs, posting 85 points in 154 games, but inexplicably ended up on waivers near the beginning of the 1999-00 campaign. He was claimed by the Blackhawks, where he emerged as a genuine first-line threat and set career-highs in goals (34) and points (75) the following year.
Sullivan joins a Marlies coaching staff headed by John Gruden, who’s entering his second year in the role. Behind the bench, they’re joined by assistant Michael Dyck, goalie coach Hannu Toivonen and video coach Troy Paquette. Gruden guided the Marlies to a 34-26-12 record last season, finishing fifth in the North Division and bowing out in the first round of the Calder Cup Playoffs.