Leafs coach Keefe facing first crisis
This is the first mini-crisis of the Sheldon Keefe era with the Maple Leafs.
And maybe ‘mini’ is the wrong word to use here. Maybe this is the first real crisis, three losses in a row, three lousy games in a row after looking like a top-five NHL team.
The worst loss occurred on Sunday night in Sunrise — in the biggest game to date of the regular season, a chance to push the Florida Panthers way back in the standings.
The Leafs didn’t show up. They never announced their presence. They weren’t ready to play. They looked as loose and sloppy and careless as at any time during the final days of Mike Babcock’s regime.
They looked nothing like a team that anyone would take seriously.
Keefe has brought new life and new energy to the hockey club.
At first, he seemed almost magician-like. The players were looser, happier, seemingly enjoying his unusual possession-style of game, with twists they haven’t seen in the offensive zone.
Then came last Monday and the Edmonton Oilers.
And that began Keefe’s first real week of NHL difficulty since he was trying to catch on with the Arizona Coyotes as a winger 16 years ago.
The Leafs and Frederik Andersen were rather lost against the Oilers, and too uninvolved against the Winnipeg Jets and then the disaster of Sunday night in Florida where everything from goaltending to effort to structure to accountability disappeared. The new magician: Now you see the Leafs, now you don’t.
And now, Morgan Rielly is out for at least two months.
The problems just continue for Keefe.
General manager Kyle Dubas is all locked into this problematic week, as well.
His unwillingness or inability to add a quality backup goaltender has made the recent difficulties of Andersen all the more unpleasant.
Andersen has been pulled in two of his past three starts, only once on merit. But his save percentages in the past three games are .667, .893 and .842. That’s good enough to get you a lottery pick.
In other NHL cities, when the starter hits a bad stretch, the team can turn to the backup goaltender.
Michael Hutchinson isn’t that guy. He isn’t good enough to get you out of trouble. Andersen got pulled against the Oilers — Hutchinson gave up three goals on 16 shots. Against Florida, after Andersen was yanked early in the second period, he gave up four goals on 17 shots.
Dubas has stubbornly maintained this isn’t a problem area.
It is the single largest welt on his young resume. It has been a problem all season long. It’s more of a problem now with the all-star Andersen struggling to find his all-star form.
Tampa can turn to Curtis McElhinney if Andrei Vasilevskiy needs a break. Boston can turn to Jaroslav Halak when Tuukka Rask is off. And on Sunday night, the Leafs lost to somebody named Chris Driedger, an Ottawa Senators draft pick from years gone by, who two years ago was playing for the Brampton Beast. That Chris Driedger.
He would probably be an upgrade on Hutchinson. Just about anyone would.
Hutchinson has played 12 games this season for the Leafs, nine as a starter, three as a backup. He has had two decent starts, one strong relief appearance and six games you want to forget about.
You need more dependability from a backup, especially with Andersen off his game. You need Glenn Healy or Jamie McLennan.
This is just one of the problems that have become evident as the Keefe magic is slowly wearing off.
Under Keefe, the Leafs still have a 15-6-2 record, a long way from the 9-10-4 team he inherited. That’s a 114-point pace compared to a 78-point pace. That’s a huge change.
But they’re 0-2-1 in the past seven days. Eighteen goals against in the three defeats. The old problems — defensive zone coverage, gap control, inability to win battles on loose pucks, shoddy neutral-zone play, too many odd-man rushes against, an overall lack of effort — seemingly came back all at once.
And it isn’t one player, one pair of defence, one forward line to fix — it’s the whole team right now.
Keefe’s Leafs are first in the NHL in scoring since he took over as coach. And they’re 11th in goals against in those 23 games, up from 30th when Babcock left.
Statistically that works. The goal differential, one of Babcock’s favourite numbers, is +21 since Keefe took over.
It was minus-8 under Babcock in the same number of games coached.
But in the past three games, it is minus-9, and it would be worse than that if the Leafs didn’t score some garbage goals after they were way behind.
Oddly, after the horrible game in Florida, after the Leafs were granted a day in the sun, they were given the day off Monday. Keefe is anything but conventional, but this is all new for him now.
His first NHL predicament. His job to find a way out. The players disgraced themselves Sunday night in Florida. That’s on them.
Now it’s time for the coach to fix all that is seemingly wrong.