TORONTO – Craig Berube, the only head coach to ever lead the St. Louis Blues to a Stanley Cup championship, is set to join the Toronto Maple Leafs next season.

The Blues parted ways with Berube last December after parts of six seasons with the team, the last two in which St. Louis ultimately missed playoffs at the end of the season.

Berube will become the 32nd head coach in the history of the Maple Leafs, an Original Six NHL franchise. The Maple Leafs have the longest drought without a Stanley Cup title, dating back nearly six decades to 1967.

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The Blues shared that distinction with the Maple Leafs when Berube first became head coach. He took over early in the 2018-19 campaign, turning a team that sat in last place in the Western Conference nearly midway through that season into a Stanley Cup winner.

Berube also takes over a Maple Leafs squad with talented stars in the likes of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, all capable of 100-point seasons. Toronto has only advanced past the first round of playoffs once since the 2004-05 season-long lockout. Their outlier resulted in second-round exit last year. With Berube, the team will hope for more sustained success in the regular season and beyond.