Maple Leafs Promote Watt to Head Coach

Tom Watt, an assistant who has been running the Toronto Maple Leafs since Friday, today was named head coach of the NHL team.

Watt becomes the 12th person to have the job in 13 seasons, and takes over a team that has only one victory and a tie in its first 12 games. It is the franchise’s worst start ever.

Watt, who was in his first year as an assistant to Doug Carpenter, was named coach on an interim basis when Carpenter was fired Friday. In Watt’s only game as coach, the Maple Leafs lost Saturday night to the Buffalo Sabres, 3-1.

In 1981, Watt took over a Winnipeg Jets team that had won only nine games and compiled 32 points the previous season. The club responded by winning 33 games and collecting 80 points. That 48-point turnaround stands as the largest improvement in NHL history, and Watt was named coach of the year.