A familiar face and a players’ coach
Marlies praise Keefe: ‘Guys will get confidence playing for him’
It’s fair to say the Toronto Marlies gave head coach Sheldon Keefe a glowing recommendation as he made the jump from to the Maple Leafs on Wednesday.
“He gave me a chance in this league, he gave me a chance to blossom in this league, and I’d like to give him credit for what I’ve been able to accomplish here,” Marlies forward Jeremy Bracco said Wednesday night after the Marlies downed the Laval Rocket 2-1 in overtime.
“He sticks to his word, he gave me feedback — what I was doing right, what I needed to work on. He’s a guy who every guy in here will go through a wall for.”
Keefe has been behind the Marlies bench the last four years, taking the team to the
AHL playoffs each season and winning the Calder Cup in 2018.
“Coaches can be serious, but Keefer likes to keep it fun,” Bracco said. “I think you know where you stand with him, where you are in the lineup, what you have to do to contribute to the lineup … He’s easy to talk to, about hockey, about life. His door is always open and you get to appreciate that a lot.”
The Marlies definitely see Keefe’s style — they all agree he’s a players’ coach — translating well in the Leafs dressing room.
“I got a lot of confidence playing under him,” Marlies defenceman Timothy Liljegren said. “He will bring that to the Leafs as well — guys will get confidence playing for him.”
Keefe’s coaching career began in 2006 with the junior-A Pembroke Lumber Kings, who he lead to five straight Central Canada Hockey League titles and the 2011 national championship. Leafs GM Kyle Dubas, then with the Soo Greyhounds, brought him to the OHL in 2012. With Dubas as GM, and Keefe as coach, the Greyhounds accomplished several feats, including three consecutive playoff berths and the best record in franchise history in 2015-15, when Keefe was named CHL coach of the year.
The Leafs hired Dubas as an assistant coach in 2015, and Dubas hired Keefe to coach the Marlies shortly after. The two had hatched a hockey model in the Soo that is a guiding philosophy for the Leafs. While Keefe described himself as a physical player who didn’t “see the ice too well” — though he had 121 points in 66 games in his last OHL season — he embraced the analytics approach Dubas began cultivating with the Greyhounds. Together, they created a hockey paradigm focused on speed and controlling the offensive zone. Defence, breakouts, backchecking and puck retrieval all flowed from that.
Keefe has developed a pipeline for the Leafs. He coached13 of the 20 skaters currently with the NHL team.
Goalie Michael Hutchinson admitted it was “tough” for him to be placed on waivers after going 0-4-1 as the Leafs’ backup this season. But he cleared waivers and settled into the Marlies instantly, with a greater impact from Keefe than he expected.
“You know, Sheldon makes sure he talks to you right away, and he is very interesting when he talks,” Hutchinson said. “I like coming to the rink every day, I listen to him and I learned new things every day listening to him. That’s the kind of coach he is.”