Maple Leafs hire former LA Kings coach Jim Hiller to replace Craig Berube

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Maple Leafs hire former LA Kings coach Jim Hiller to replace Craig Berube

2026-06-18 02:27 Last Updated At：02:31

TORONTO (AP) — The Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday hired Jim Hiller as the 41st head coach in franchise history, bringing back an assistant with the club from 2015-19.

The 57-year-old Hiller replaces Craig Berube as part of an offseason overhaul led by new general manager John Chayka.

Most recently, Hiller served as head coach of the Los Angeles Kings, compiling a 93-58-24 record over parts of three seasons. The Kings fired Hiller on March 1 following an 8-1 loss to Edmonton.

“(Hiller) has worked with successful teams throughout his career, connects well with players and brings a clear approach behind the bench,” Chayka said in a news release. “We believe he’s the right person to lead our team and help us reach our goals.”

Hiller served as an assistant coach with the Kings for two seasons before being promoted to head coach.

A native of Port Alberni, British Columbia, Hiller spent 11 seasons coaching junior hockey, including stints with the WHL’s Tri-City Americans and several teams in the British Columbia Hockey League, before moving to the NHL ranks.

“I’m incredibly excited for the opportunity to return to Toronto and lead the Maple Leafs,” Hiller said in the release. “This is a special organization with great players, passionate fans and high expectations. I’m looking forward to getting to work with our players and staff and doing everything we can to help this team reach its full potential.”

The Leafs fired Berube on May 13 after two seasons, following a first-to-last turnaround this past season. After finishing atop the Atlantic Division in 2024-25 and making it to the second round of the playoffs, Toronto fell to last in the division and 28th in the NHL.

His firing came 10 days after Chayka was brought on board to replace Brad Treliving. Chayka called the Berube firing “an opportunity to start fresh,” and said the team would go through a wide-ranging search.

Along with making some new front-office additions, Chayka traded goaltender Joseph Woll and depth defenseman Simon Benoit to the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday for blue-liner Emil Andrae, goalie Samuel Ersson and a third-round pick at next week’s NHL draft.

Toronto owns the No. 1 pick in the draft, a first since taking Auston Matthews atop the 2016 draft.

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G7 leaders back Trump's deal to end Iran war as more details of it emerge

EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France (AP) — Leaders at the Group of Seven summit on Wednesday threw their support behind U.S. President Donald Trump's tentative agreement with Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz and extend a shaky ceasefire.

Closing the three-day summit, French President Emmanuel Macron called it a “very good deal,” adding that U.S. allies in the G7 support it “because it’s an agreement that puts a stop to a situation of great instability that had terrible consequences for our economies.”

At his own press conference, Trump hailed the deal as “historic” and said other G7 leaders say “they love this deal because they want to see it over.”

U.S. officials meanwhile dictated the text of the deal to journalists, with details released after the summit ended.

The accord, due to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday, lays out that the U.S. would work to end all U.S. and United Nations sanctions imposed on Tehran if a final agreement addressing Iran’s nuclear program is reached.

“I think it’ll be done. They want to sign. They want to get back to a normal life,” Trump said earlier Wednesday.

The final day of G7 talks at a lakeside resort in the French Alps started late with Trump, the last to arrive, saying “I’m the boss” as he entered and sat next to Macron. The assembled leaders laughed, and Trump grinned.

The formal talks of the leading industrial democracies closed with sessions on the future of artificial intelligence and fostering economic growth. They discussed concerns that China is flooding export markets with subsidized products, unfairly out-competing their own industries and destroying jobs. Leaders of India, South Korea, Kenya and Brazil joined the meeting.

Trump later was having a glitzy dinner at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris before he jets back to Washington.

Trump still has to sell the deal to some members of his own Republican party who doubt it will defang Iran’s nuclear program. At the same time, he faces an anxious international community looking for him to follow through on his promise that the deal will reopen the Strait of Hormuz to oil tanker traffic and keep it open.

The G7 leaders said an international maritime mission led by France and the U.K. “can play an important role to facilitate the resumption of maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz by protecting merchant vessels, reassuring commercial shipping operators, and supporting verification that all mines are removed.”

Iran effectively closed the strait early in the war that began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Isreali attacks.

The deal also calls for an immediate end to all fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia Hezbollah. That is one of the most delicate parts of the agreement because Israel has maintained it will continue to defend itself and to occupy vast swaths of Lebanon.

The agreement that U.S. officials dictated to journalists on Wednesday also has provisions to ensure “territorial integrity” of Lebanon after Israel’s latest attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanese territory.

In their declaration, G7 leaders said they supported “through an immediate robust ceasefire” Lebanese efforts to disarm Hezbollah, and protect Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Israeli strikes in Lebanon have killed nearly 4,000 people and displaced more than 1 million since fighting there began on March 2.

“Israel’s fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed,” Trump said.

In a flurry of unanimously agreed declarations, the G7 leaders stressed their support for Ukraine as it battles Russia's invasion and agreed to increase deliveries of air defense systems. They also said they would bolster sanctions on Moscow, including on Russia's oil and gas industries.

Trump called the conversations on ending the war in Ukraine “productive” and said both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy want to “do something."

“They just don't know how,” he said.

Leaders also pledged to step up the fight against the multibillion-dollar international drug trade.

Trump has been waging his own battle against drug traffickers. United States military strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats transiting in Latin America have killed more than 200 people since September, when the Trump administration began an operation it has justified as necessary to stem the flow of drugs.

Critics have questioned the legality of the strikes.

In a separate declaration, the G7 leaders reaffirmed their efforts to halt migrant smuggling and human trafficking, which they said “constitute serious transnational crimes that erode the sovereign right of States to control their borders and expose smuggled and trafficked persons to life-threatening risks.”

Trump said Wednesday after meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the U.S. is “very close” to reaching a trade deal with India, and then went on to lavish praise on Modi as “a very tough negotiator.”

“He’s the most beautiful-looking man. He looks so nice. He’s like an angel. But actually, he’s as tough as he’s a killer,” Trump said.

The meeting with Modi came at a choppy moment in the U.S.-India relationship, in part because of the war in the Middle East. On June 10 three Indian sailors were killed in a U.S. military strike on a tanker in the Gulf of Oman in the midst of the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports.

Modi alluded to the incident at their meeting, saying the safety of Indian mariners "is of utmost importance to us.” He added he was “confident” the issue of seafarers” will be a top priority during implementation of the agreement between the United States and Iran.

Superville reported from Geneva. AP writers John Leicester in Evian-les-Bains, Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Mike Corder in The Hague, Netherlands, and Seung Min Kim and Collin Binkley in Washington contributed reporting.