SHELDON SHUNTED
Looking for a `new voice' Maple Leafs sack their head coach after too many years of playoff failures
Get it right for a change. Wouldn't that be nice, Leafs Nation? Some 57 years have passed since the Maple Leafs most recently won the Stanley Cup in 1967, and now, with the firing of Sheldon Keefe on Thursday, another head coach will get the opportunity to lead the team to that elusive promised land.
General manager Brad Treliving, who last August signed Keefe to a two-year extension that runs through the 2025-26 season, now gets to hire his own guy, as the saying goes in professional sports.
“Today's decision was difficult,” Treliving said in a statement released by the team. “Sheldon is an excellent coach and a great man; however, we determined a new voice is needed to help the team push through to reach our ultimate goal.
“We thank Sheldon for his hard work and dedication to the organization over the last nine years, and wish him and his family all the very best.”
The Keefe firing is another indictment of the Shanaplan, now a decade old and with nothing to show for it. Since taking over in 2014, president Brendan Shanahan has guided the Leafs to nothing. One playoff round win in 10 years does not count as something.
We're going to find out on Friday morning, at a media availability involving new MLSE CEO and president Keith Pelley, Shanahan and Treliving, what's in store for Shanahan moving forward. Given what has transpired on his watch, it's hard to believe he's still going to be part of the group tasked with constructing a Cup-winning team.
When the Boston Bruins' David Pastrnak scored in overtime of Game 7 on Saturday, sending the Leafs home early yet again, the Keefe speculation kicked into high gear.
In the statement, the Leafs said that decisions regarding the remainder of the coaching staff “will follow.” Assistant coach Guy Boucher has come under much scrutiny for failing to make the power play work against the Bruins, as the Leafs went 1-for-21 in the first-round series. We'll see if pink slips eventually will be given to assistants Dean Chynoweth, Manny Malhotra, Mike Van Ryn and goaltending coach Curtis Sanford as well. No matter who is hired as head coach, he will want to bring some of his own people aboard.
The firing ended a 41/2-year run by Keefe that was high on regular-season success and low on playoff wins. It's a formula that doesn't add up, and Keefe paid the price. When he met with media on Monday, Keefe had an idea this was coming, as much as he would have welcomed another chance to get it right.
“We're in the results business and we didn't get results,” Keefe said. “We haven't met expectations. As a head coach, I take responsibility for that.”
Much speculation has linked the Leafs and Craig Berube, who coached the St. Louis Blues to the Stanley Cup in 2019. Berube, who also coached the Philadelphia Flyers from 2013-15, was fired by the Blues in December.
Among Berube's many stops in a playing career in the National Hockey League that lasted more 1,000 games was part of one season with the Leafs in 1991-92.
If not Berube, others who could be considered include Todd McLellan, Gerard Gallant, Jay Woodcroft and Joel Quenneville, though he requires NHL clearance.
No matter who the new coach is, crucial in his role will be a solid working relationship with Auston Matthews. The expectation is that Matthews, whose four-year extension starts next season, will be the Leafs' next captain. The future of John Tavares is to be determined, perhaps, but with one year remaining on his contract, the time will be right to have a change in the captaincy, whether that's before the 2024-25 season or heading into 2025-26.
Keefe grew as a coach after taking over from the fired Mike Babcock in November 2019, shaping the Leafs into a club that took its defensive responsibilities more seriously.
There was a slip in that regard this past season, but how many times did we hear Treliving say that the defence corps was a work in progress?
In leading the Leafs to 102 points in 2023-24, Keefe got a lot out of the club, considering the injuries (only William Nylander played in all 82 games) and goaltending inconsistencies.
If you're judging Keefe just on this season — and getting to within one goal of the second round despite not having the full services of Matthews and Nylander in the first round — there wouldn't be much basis for firing him.
On Keefe's watch in the past several years, the Leafs' trio of young stars — Matthews, Mitch Marner and Nylander — became better players, and not just through maturation.
When the hockey became crucial and wins were the only way to go, though, the Leafs couldn't get it done.
The overall lack of post-season success, and the inability of Keefe to make to make a coaching difference in more than a few close series, brought his time with the Leafs to an end.
While we figured initially that there might have been some leeway for Keefe when neither Matthews nor Nylander was able to play in all seven games against the Bruins, Treliving saw it differently.
Even with a two-year extension signed last August, and with Kyle Dubas no longer a bit of safety net after he was fired last May, the feeling was Keefe had to win at least one round in the 2024 Stanley Cup playoffs to keep his job.
It wasn't supposed to end this way in the organization for Keefe, not after he guided the Marlies to a Calder Cup title in 2018, some 17 months before he was promoted by Dubas to coach the Leafs.
At 43, Keefe's best coaching days in the NHL likely are ahead of him. He won't be out of work for long, whether that's a reunion with Dubas in Pittsburgh or anywhere else.
And in Toronto, the spotlight on his replacement won't be any less hot.