Keefe’s first goal: renew lost ‘spirit’
New lines, new power plays. Head coach Sheldon Keefe has already made changes to the Maple Leafs designed to turn them back into an offensive juggernaut.
And there are more changes to come as a new bench boss tries to turn around a group of underachievers — whose performance this NHL season has them closer to the bottom of the standings than a playoff spot, and cost Mike Babcock his job.
It’s all about renewing the “spirit” of the team, Keefe said, addressing the media at Gila River Arena in Glendale, Ariz., where the 9-10-4 Leafs were looking to put an end to a six-game losing streak
Thursday night against the Coyotes.
“If we can tweak a couple things that can inspire some confidence, then we can hopefully build on that,” said Keefe, laying out what kind of hockey he wants to see. “What I would like the team to look like is a team that, when we have the puck, we’re going to capitalize on it and we’re going to take advantage of it.
“We want to utilize the skills we have. The team was built in a manner that can capitalize when it has the puck.”
Keefe certainly sounds more in tune with general manager Kyle Dubas, who has now hired the coach three times:
First with the OHL’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, then the AHL’s Marlies and now the Maple Leafs. “The stamp I want on the team is, yes we want it to be very fast,” Dubas said. “We want the team to have a lot of talent, we want the team to be very creative when we’re on offence and the players to feel free when they’re on offence. The minute that we don’t have the puck, we’re right away tenacious and fast, not allowing them to really even get into our zone.”
Those messages are very different from what Babcock preached: gritting out victories in low-scoring games.
While they said nice things about each other at times, it became abundantly clear that Dubas and Babcock were not on the same page — even though they claimed the opposite through the off-season and the early part of this campaign.
“We’re going to go through some changes, stylistically and with our systems, and it may not look great at times and may not feel great at times, but in the long run it’s to get the group to play the way that it’s absolutely designed to play,” Dubas said.
Team president Brendan Shanahan clearly sided with his GM and a vision of hockey that is very different from the brand
Shanahan played and Babcock preached.
“This is how I see a team should be built as well,” Shanahan said in an earlier press conference.
He noted criticism that the team does not have enforcers, grinders or even players that are particularly physical.
“We want to be gritty,” he said. “I think that our interpretation of toughness and grittiness might be different from someone who played in the ’70s and ’80s or coached then. How we define that to our players: It’s about winning battles and being mentally tough, making a mistake and not becoming weak or small because of it. So we’re aligned on how we want to build this team.”
As for defence, perhaps the team’s fatal flaw, Keefe will get to work on that, too.
“We feel like some of the offensive people that we have and what they’re able to do will make us a better defensive team, because we’ll have the puck a lot more,” Keefe said. “And we’ll put the other team in a tough spot. That will limit their ability to transition and play against us with their speed.
“So we have a lot of work to do, a lot of things to really just renew the spirit of the team.”
As for changes, Ilya Mikheyev got a big promotion to John Tavares’s left wing for Thursday night’s game, with Zach Hyman moving to right wing, and it appears defenceman Tyson Barrie — whose offensive struggles mirrored the team’s puzzling play — will get more time with Morgan Rielly on the top power-play unit.
Babcock was 173-133-45 as coach of the Leafs, the fifthmost wins in franchise history. While he brought credibility during a crucial rebuild and led them to the playoffs three times, the Leafs still haven’t won a playoff round since 2004.
Keefe’s record with the Marlies was199-89-31(.668 winning percentage) and included three trips to the conference final and a Calder Cup title.
“It’s not an optimal time to have someone new coming in and run the bench and run the program,” Dubas said in addressing the media for the first time since firing Babcock on Wednesday. “I just felt that the level of our ups and downs, our consistency, and just kind of reading off the players, watching them, how they were reacting to different things, that it was probably just time (for a change).”
Shanahan, who landed Babcock in 2015 with a record eightyear, $50-million (U.S.) contract, was involved in the discussions to fire him.
“I don’t know if I characterize that a coach has lost the room,” Shanahan said. “I just think that from a player’s perspective, you could see the frustration in their eyes. I really thought even in our last game (a 4-2 loss to Vegas) that the players were working really hard, but there was a sort of a belief missing in them.”
They both say Keefe is the right man for the job.
“Our whole goal as a program is to have each individual player reach his maximum potential,” Dubas said. “You’re hopeful that Sheldon can take them to a new level and a different level, and that’s what we’re looking forward to getting to work on today and rolling from there.”