Jeff Halpern, one-time captain of the Washington Capitals, could be in the running for the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ open head-coaching position.
The Potomac, Maryland native has been an assistant coach on Jon Cooper’s staff with the Tampa Bay Lightning for the past eight years, but could be a potential interviewee for one of the top jobs in the NHL. Hockey insider Elliotte Friedman recently brought Halpern’s name up when discussing Toronto’s search on Sportsnet’s The FAN Hockey Show.
“The other one I wonder is a guy like Jeff Halpern, too,” Friedman said. “Now, I’ve heard with Halpern, the issue teams have told him before is that he’s never been a head coach before. So, I’ve wondered if someone is waiting for him to do AHL first, but that’s another name I think could be kind of on Toronto’s radar.”
Halpern spent the first six seasons of his NHL career with the Capitals, his hometown team. He then came back for one more year with the club in 2011-12, before wrapping up his pro career with the Phoenix Coyotes in 2013-14. Overall, he played 976 career games with the Caps, Coyotes, Lightning, Dallas Stars, Los Angeles Kings, Montreal Canadiens, and New York Rangers.
After just a year away from the game, Halpern started his coaching career in 2016, joining Tampa Bay’s AHL affiliate, the Syracuse Crunch, first as a development coach and then as an assistant coach. He spent three seasons in the AHL before joining Cooper’s staff with the Lightning during the 2018-19 campaign.
Since then, he has won two Stanley Cups with the Lightning after being part of just one playoff series victory as a player (2012, Capitals). Halpern has previously been mentioned as a potential future NHL head coach, even reportedly interviewing with the Capitals before they hired Spencer Carbery in 2023.
“I just heard in the interview process that there were some people who were kind of like, ‘Well, it’s the Leafs, they’ll want a veteran,'” Friedman added. “And apparently, the Leafs weren’t necessarily married to that. They were like, ‘We want the right person.’ If it’s someone who’s a bit younger, but they like them, or first job and they like them, they didn’t sound scared of it. Not at all, from what I heard.”
Other potential candidates that Friedman mentioned included Bruce Cassidy, Manny Malhotra, David Carle, Mike Van Ryn, Steve Sullivan, and Misha Donskov. The Leafs’ job opened up when they fired Craig Berube earlier this week after two seasons in charge.
