Leafs extend Sheldon Keefe

[Uncle Scrooge]

I don't think extending Keefe is a bad move. Clearly, the team is playing up to their potential in the regular season, and they did just beat Tampa in the playoffs.

Sometimes you got to let the coach work through it with the team. It's not much different when Trotz averaged 111 pts with the Caps in 4 seasons but they only beat the 1st round underdogs every year.. until they broke through.

Leafs have hit 110 pts (or on pace in covid year) all of last 3 seasons when Keefe's been the coach from training camp. That's not something you just shrug off, especially since I don't think they've iced some sort of powerhouse rosters with incredible depth.

I think 2 years is good to evaluate. Gives him a bit of "security" but not too much.

 

[Strangle]

If Dubas had made this move, the anti-Dubas crowd would pan the shit out of it and see it as Dubas running amok again. Treveling comes in, hands Keefe the extension, and it's "cool, right on, we got shitloads of cash, we can always stroke a check to make him go away."

Meanwhile, team president Brendan Shanahan continues to float along on the Sea of Goodwill because of a carefully crafted image that people have bought for years that masks his incompetence. If (when?) this move blows up, it'll be interesting to see whether Shanahan continues to skate from questions.


You know who else was a consistent top team? Washington, pre-2018. St. Louis, pre-2019. San Jose for years. Nashville for years.

What did all of those teams do? Put up gaudy regular season numbers, struggle in the postseason. But at least all 4 of those teams won a series on occasion. The last 3 got to at least one conference final. Arguably swiped a series they shouldn't have. And, they all made at least one significant change to their alleged core along the way.

What has Toronto done? Built a core, kept it together and then tinkered around the edges ... and for that, it has 7 straight playoff appearances - the first three with a guy who's won a Stanley Cup, the last 5 with the current core and the last 4 with Keefe at the helm - and one series win against an exhausted Lightning squad coming off back-to-back-to-back Finals appearances.

Are they closer to tinkering with the edges than to blowing it up? Not if this group keeps up the recent track record, because "top team in the regular season, ass kicked in the postseason" doesn't keep a roster together, especially one that's been allegedly built to win a championship and loses more playoff games every year than it wins.

The Leafs are just the early 2000’s Sens

We in Toronto used to make fun of that Sens team, all skill and no heart or grit. We knew they would never beat us in the playoffs, president trophies were meaningless once the real season started.

Now the Leafs are the ones with all skill and no heart or grit and might threaten a division championship or a presidents trophy, just to be bullied in the playoffs by teams with more heart and grit than they have.

 

[Mr Positive]

It's a good move but definitely highlights that the team will have no meaningful change at all. The one remaining chance is a Nylander trade but I doubt it happens. Based on his comments, Treliving was added because he was keeping the core together.

But whatever. Maybe the Leafs are all about waiting for the Tavares deal to expire, and that might be the smart move because there is no guarantee that their playoff woes continue with this group.

Also Keefe wasn't really ever the issue. Replacing a coach is the easy thing to do. The media also went along with that. The team had that mood too based on Dubas' comments

It's just that the mood after the Leafs loss was that change was going to happen

 

[Crosby2010]

That is just a weird thing to do right now. The Leafs were bad in the playoffs. Yeah sure, they beat Tampa. Okay, great. Then they had somewhat of a clear path to the Cup final and couldn't score if their life depended on it against Florida. Matthews doesn't score a single goal in the series his team gets eliminated and is rewarded by being the highest paid player in the NHL. Yeah I know, you don't want to lose him by any means, but the Keefe thing is just bizarre. How did Dubas lose his job and Keefe didn't? Which by the way, both should have. Keefe has not shown he could do anything better than Babcock did. In fact, Babcock only had 2019 as a playoff year where you could say maybe, MAYBE they could have beaten the Bruins. His Leaf teams never choked, not once.

 

[FlameChampion]

On one hand, I think its probably a good move. Theres a lot of noise in Toronto. And if the coach isnt extended its just something else to talk to. I dont think this means Keefe is safe at all.

On the other hand, I just wonder what message it sends. Organization just seems to give everyone what they want. I think you have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Matthews probably wasnt the right guy to do it. But Keefe/Nylander etc probably is.

 

[HuGo Sham]

I know many are laughing at the extension, but I think it's a good idea. I'm not sure Leafs are built for playoff success but their core is still young enough to run it back a few more times and see. There is precedent with teams like TB and Colorado finally winning when their stars matured. It then makes sense to bring Keefe back. He has a solid rep with leafs core and is already like 6th winningest coach in leafs history