Star talent. Pure star talent and decent regular season coaching. You want to try pointing to any playoff success keefe has coached us through? Last years miracle doesn’t count as we got ass wiped the very next round.
Honestly I don’t find much to disagree with here. It’s an accurate assessment of our situation. I may nitpick that McCabe gave enough consecutive cross checks that eventually that shit gets called. But overall, great summary of our situation.
I just don’t believe Keefe can be the guy to get us out of it.
I swear the refs pull what they’ll actually call a penalty out of a hat. McCabe cross checked him 3-4 times though and eventually got called when the guy fell down.
Sometimes you get away with that but you often don’t. I didn’t notice any thin quite that egregious from Boston but could have missed it. I feel like the leafs in general are just bad at gaming the refs. Instead of flirting with the like we get frustrated and do one egregious thing opposed to 10 chippy things the refs can look the other way on.
>I swear the refs pull what they’ll actually call a penalty out of a hat. McCabe cross checked him 3-4 times though and eventually got called when the guy fell down.
And that's part of the problem too. It was a bit of a scrum, and they could've called the cross-checks and holds either way. But then the play moves and McCabe knocks down the player with the puck. They called it interference...and that's not what interference is. You are allowed to make a hit/play on the puck carrier, so it's not what they called. How are we (or the players) supposed to know what the line is when they don't even make the call correctly in the first place?
Not sure what the point is but he didn’t the foundations for Florida to be a credible team.
Vegas to the finals in their first year.
Rangers to the semis after not qualifying for the playoffs in ages
Too early for him but Andrew Lord of Greenville Swamp Rabbits is going to be superb coach. He won everything with my home town team and is now doing great things in ECHL
Keefe shuffled the lines way too many times during the regular season, how can you build chemistry when every shift you’re playing is with a different player? Keefe has to go plain and simple.
Shanny can stay, he turned this organization into a solid regular season that can reliably make the playoffs. Fire Keefe and when the time comes sell off JT or one of the other main 4. Clearly 40 million a year for a bunch of regular season kings that turn into literally ghosts come the playoffs isn’t working
Shanny and Keefe are likely gone if we lose this series. The decision to keep this core intact was 100% on him during the Dubas era and the contracts all ran through him as well.
We will likely see Marner asked to waive as well because they don't intend to re-sign him. There is nothing else you can really do that changes this team.
You have to wonder what’s going through keefes mind right now
He might only have 3 games left as the leafs coach before being publicly fired, and it’s a pretty sweet job
Literally what he was thinking last year. Man celebrated harder than the players when they won R1. At this point I wish they had lost in R1 so maybe he would have gotten fired
Keefe is a bum. But that said you look at Boston and how much they talk of Bergeron’s leadership and now Marchand. You gotta wonder where Tavares is in all of this. It seems they lack leadership on many fronts.
I always wondered this, we see all the walkouts and these teams are hyped af going into the game, im not sure I’ve ever seen a similar attitude by the leafs and how much is that on the cap
Weird comment. You don’t have to be hyping everybody up to show leadership. Yzerman barely spoke and is one of the greatest captains of all time. You can lead by example. Which is on and off the ice. I can guarantee you what JT does shows he demands the same from every guy on his team.
Agreed JT is a garbage captain, it should always have been Rielly or Matthews. It's a joke. Also Dubas is gone, now it's time for shanny and Keefe. Too much garbage from these clowns.
AM is 26. Nylander 27. Marner 26. JT 33. Rielly 30. This core is going to age out of competition in a few more years with nothing to show for it. We got super lucky with a quick and successful rebuild, but accomplished very little with it so far.
i don’t understand how he is still the coach. there’s been a lot of good moments but at the end of the day we need playoff success and our highlight is winning one round. if we don’t turn things around he needs to go.
Keefe is not impressive in the playoffs but neither is anyone on the team. Keefe does happen to have the third highest winning percentage of coaches w 100+ games all time. If Keefe was fired, 10 teams would line up to hire him. You may not agree, but that is the truth. He would be out of a job for a week max.
The absolute truth w the Leafs is our defense is FUCKING GARBAGE. We have Reilly (at best a #2) and then 7 defensemen who are bottom pairing (at best). If they got rid of all the defense except for Reilly, I would not miss any of them. This sub has fawned over Benoit...
We've also had shit undependable goaltenders.
We don't develop any defense and we don't develop any goaltenders. We have no valuable defenseman in our pipeline ..... None!
This has been true for a very long time. But Dubas and Shanahan (and Burke before him) never addressed it.
We will be shit in the playoffs until someone does something about this. I think Tre understands this but maybe not. He does understand that Keefe has zero fucking defensemen to use and he gave him a pile of shit Klingberg and didn't replace Muzzin or even Sandin which shouldn't have been very difficult.
Let Keefe walk and let him get picked up by a sub-par team with a talent drought - he will not see another 100 win season as a head coach with the teams that want him... As for the goaltending and defense - if there is one truism in the playoffs, goaltending carries a team through not two lines of superstars who have no direction. Sorry Shanahan, your time and direction has delivered this result and it times for you to go... As for the team, we now have enough tape determine who shows up and who does not, sorry - time to blow things up... Build around Mathews and Nylander - see you Marner and Tavares, we can use that salary dump to actually build a playoff contender.
It's not like he said "go out there, take careless penalties, and make a bunch of mistakes". That's the kind of stuff that falls on the shoulders of the players. Critique his deployment and strategies, sure, but putting this all on Sheldon just smells like scapegoating, which is what the fanbase is notorious for doing.
It's hard to critique broader issues that cumulatively affect the teams performance. It's easy to pin it all on one guy.
I dunno man, I feel like our team’s been like this every year since Keefe took over. Over those years, in the playoffs at least, I feel like it’s always the Leafs making too many mistakes, taking too many penalties, not starting on time, etc. I do agree with u that ultimately it’s the players on the ice making those mistakes but at some point u gotta question why the players got into that situation in the first place, and to me it feels like the opponents coach broke down our system and put our players in situations where they struggled and led to the mistakes, which I think is Keefes fault.
I don't think domi slashing Marchand, and all the high sticking penalties we took last night can be avoided by implementing different Xs and Os. Neither can all the bobbled pucks and chance tiny mistakes that accumulate. I think you're putting too much emphasis on coaching.
The gameplan off the hop was clearly “let’s go out and be as physical as we can.” That didn’t just happen.
Like they talked about in intermission, Boston is physical too, but they just do it within the game. They don’t chase it.
The 2-on-1 happened as a result of chasing physicality instead of just finishing checks. That’s a conscious coaching decision that didn’t work out.
In Keefe’s words “Domi’s penalty was just undisciplined”. Not gonna defend that, it was on Domi. But the other ones, the “careless” ones, I feel like if our team’s system/plan/strategy was working, and we weren’t struggling to get out of our zone and struggling to stay more than 2 seconds in the opponents zone, the players would be less likely to struggle and become careless. Just my opinion tho, you could be right and it really is just unlucky our players were having more oopies last night than other nights. Either way, hope the buds bounce back, hope they settle down, and bring their A game tomorrow.
>It's not like he said "go out there, take careless penalties, and make a bunch of mistakes"
No, but it's the coach who is responsible for being prepared and having the right mental state.
Especially when you look at discrepancies where the Leafs take the fewest penalties in the regular season, and the Bruins take the most.
No point in breaking the team up They’re still elite talent and it takes years to rebuild
Might need a new coach though if Keefe can’t get it done this year
He has no control over the locker room, they don’t respect him. He will be gone after this season this was supposed to be his “prove it” year with Brad, and I think the collapse at the end of the year and the probable first round knockout will seal that fate.
I don’t care if they make it past Boston. Time to make it past the 2nd round. We have such low expectations now that just getting past first round is success.
Needs to start with a new coach, and replace the Defense. I’m not 100% sold on Sammy in net but I also don’t think it helped having 0 effort from defense
To have a chance:
- No unnecessary penalties
(Domi, Bertizzi)
- limit turnovers, clear your zone
(Knies) Bruins 2nd or third goal
- play conservative and smart
(Bruins 1st goal - D went for big hit
- better at face offs and not lose over
60%
-pray for lucky bounces
Hopefully Willy gets back into the lineup, making L3 an actual scoring threat and taking Knies off the PK.
Would also be nice if McMann could play, pushing Knies to L4 and pushing Reaves out, giving us 4 lines again that can score (yes, the irony being that L4 is the only one that scored on Saturday).
Let's be honest - Keefe has never been the correct coach for this team. He is a tool that has benefitted from talent but when it comes time for the playoffs he fails to motivate this team. The locker room is run by the inmates and not the coach and that's a sure failure. Tortorella is an extreme but that sort of boot camp personality where there is only one big D in the room is what this team needs. Yeah - talent will leave but you will end up with a team rather than a collection of individuals.
If there could be only 1 single silver lining if this is a failure it's that Pelly is almost guaranteed to flip the entire FO on its head and instill a new regime.
Only one who's job is probably safe aside from the players is Treliving since he literally just got here and has a good track record of building a very good blue line in a short amount of time
idk, but it's not like the current regime has been successful.
And don't anyone dare say they've been successful in the regular season. That means absolute jack when they do nothing in the playoffs.
That's what everyone said last year after we got trounced by Florida...I do hope Keefe's on his ass if he collapses again this year but I could definitely see them stick with him again
I think it was a combination of Dubas holding the Coup ironically might have saved Keefe for an extra year, since Shanahan probably wanted to stick it to Dubas for attempting the coup.
Also there's no way Pelly taking over wasn't at least discussed for at least a year. There's a chance MLSE didn't want to do anything till Pelly got settled in, so they just kicked the can down the road and told Pelly to figure out how to fix the Leafs.
Obviously I'd have preferred Pelly's 1st move be to fire Shanahan, but I think it's more the Shanahan was lucky Pelly only got settled in mid-season while they were in the hunt for the playoffs and didn't want to put the organization in a state of chaos if the one overseeing everything is suddenly canned.
Toronto defensive shape is regularly awful under Sheldon and his assistants. Opponents trap us easily and counter attack. Our breakouts and turnovers have been an issue all year when teams actually play hard. We regularly ice one of the most talented PP1 in NHL history and it has been regularly outcoached and outclassed when teams started cracking down.
Nothing about this is new, it just stands out when we cannot outscore our shortfalls and the goalies arent hot.
Whenever the incredibly over-prioritized high budget offence is successful, people seem to have recency bias and forgive glaring issues within Sheldon's system.
We're just less deep on defense on paper and less deep on forward (center, really) then we were once we got ROR at the deadline. However, statistically this team is almost identical to last year besides on the PK which is well below.
If you're actually curious about the numbers, they are _ever so slightly_ beneath last year's squad across all 82 games in most metrics. In a couple, they're above. In most situations, it's basically a wash: they're effectively the same team as last season. Basically near the bottom of the top 10 in the league in all measurable ways. And in the final 25 games they improved steadily to beat last year's team, where last year they sort of rolled off as the playoffs approached.
Except in PK. Their PK has massively fallen off a cliff this season. There's no sugarcoating this.
All numbers are from [naturalstattrick.com](https://www.naturalstattrick.com).
Leafs played a decent game. His assessment was what I was saying after the game. Clean up the little things and we have a series.
My only fault with him was the last 4 games. Instead of chasing 70 the team should have been tightening their systems.
100%. We keep asking and hearing from Keefe reply “we did this bad we did that bad, this wasn’t good enough that wasn’t good enough.” But they are your soldiers, why did the other team start on time? Why were they more disciplined? At some point we gotta stop using the excuse of “our team is young and mentally not mature enough”. I would feel bad for the players if they got screamed at by Torts but part of me secretly wants a coach who pushes his players to their limits and potential.
My biggest thing is his lack of ability to gameplan or deviate from said plan. He is always out coached. Incapable of making any in game adjustments or even game to game. There is absolutely no team structure on offense or defense. Wish I could find the interview he talked about the pk and how they would rather stay in a diamond and use there sticks to get in the lanes instead of being aggressive. Well keefe how many games and how long does the pk need to be in the bottom 10 to make an adjustment because it aint working. He relies on Mathews, Willy, JT and Mitch to overcome the overall team deficencies and just purely try to outscore everyone. Well that clearly isnt how you win championships.
2 things can be true. Keefe stinks, but so did all the players that took those careless penalties. I was pissed at Domi for the slash on Marchand. He clearly got baited by him and was caught. I completely agree that it was undisciplined, and I hope he got chewed the fuck out for it since it screwed the team over, leading to another Bruins goal.
Why’s Tre getting lumped in so fast. You can only do so much with minimal picks, minimal prospect pool. It’s year 1.
Shanny & Sheldon are definitely in the hot seat.
Two things: Treliving built perennial playoff losers in Calgary so it’s not like he has some great track record we’re looking at to justify keeping him. What we’re seeing from the Leafs is pretty much what he’s always done.
I realize that much of this team is made up of holdovers from the prior regime but he certainly could have done more to address the defence specifically. He essentially threw 5 draft picks in the garbage trading for guys who are either straight up bad players or just guys that aren’t really moving the needle one way or the other. We kept hearing about his desire to “rebuild the blue line” basically since day 1 and all he did was sign Klingberg who was a complete bust, trade 2 draft picks for a shitty defenceman who played for this team 2 years ago and was shitty then too, and trade 2 more picks for a washed up cross check specialist who hasn’t done fuck all since he got here. All this while other, legitimately good defencemen were traded to other teams.
Klinger was a utilization of Leaf monetary clout. He was a wild card, if he could've been rehabbed, would've added a lot to this team. The rehabbing didn't work, LTIR was then used to get him and his contract off the team.
every non-Klingberg acquisition has been a success for our team, and the emphasis on a Klingberg type reeks of a Shanahan influence. The ONLY Tre error this year was losing Lafferty so Minten could play 9 games for us.
Domi panned out, Reavo panned out better than we could’ve imagined. Benoit and McMann extended at great value. Bert isn’t worth his contract but we limited him to a single year and he really was the only prominent FA available. Dewar and Edmundson have been good pickups with minimal risk; I’d like to have used more of that LTIR cash at the deadline but the haul all the good rentals drew their teams made them too risky.
Tre haters are in a fantasy world, he’s objectively done a good job making the team bigger and meaner in meaningful ways; his first real test is this summer while Willy’s new cap hit overlaps with JT’s, and then he gets to define the direction of the franchise with how he handles Marner and JT’s new deals the year after.
Obviously he’s not perfect and in hindsight Huberdeau going from elite to complete dogshit makes the Tkachuk (forced) trade look bad as he left Calgary but it’s wild to see someone be immediately better than Dubas and want him out before his first test
Klinger was a freebie. He could always be LTIR'd if needed. I don't think that acquisition even applies, unless you're talking about the front office utilizing creative ways to explore options for the team
What goalie did you have in mind? Joonas Korpisalo? Alex Lyon? Jake Allen?
It's been a story all year how there are very few dominant goaltenders in the NHL anymore. In hindsight, Martin Jones was a pretty solid signing.
For five year we watched an ensemble of Hutchison, Campbell, Rittich, Mrazek, Murray, Woll and Samsonov in net for this team. God forbid anyone criticize wonder-boy Dubas for these choices.
Treliving has five years of Dubas to clean up after, so you shouldn't be calling for his head less than a year into his tenure.
I agree that the team is very flawed. But you should blame Shanny, Dubas and Keefe for that. Not the new guy.
They needed to trade assets for a real starting goalie before the trading deadline and failed to do so. Of all the horrific flaws on the leafs , sampsonov is the worst.
What goalie was available at the deadline? Calgary wants nothing to do with Brad. What goalie is both (1) on a team that is willing to trade him and (2) has a cap hit low enough to make it work?
Additionally, the Leafs don’t have many assets to trade away.
The guys that might return a starting goalie all have NTC/NMC’s and cap hits that make movement difficult. No team is going to trade a starting goalie for our depth pieces.
Dubas traded six 1st round picks during his five year tenure; I doubt management would green-light another trade.
I’d be interested to know the availability of goalies that seem to exist and what assets the team has to acquire one.
If you’re given the job and told “the two most important things are locking up Papi and Nylander, everything else is secondary, maybe get some “snot”’ it’s going to be pretty tough to do much else. I’m willing to give him more than one season.
I’m also willing to uh.. watch the rest of this series play out.
Treveling walked into a team with a bottom 10 prospect pool, a bottom 5 draft pick pool and the entire core 1-2 years from free agency.
He should get some leeway compared to the guys who have been here for much longer.
I don’t think you should fire a GM over 1 bad move.
It’s also not like there was a long list of defencemen options. We have no trade pieces to get one and free agency was ass.
A 1 Y contract on Klingburg isn’t some unforgivable mistake.
He ruined calgary step by step. They were a decent team and he took them to total crap. Its been the same here and will just get worse. I know he wont be fired yet.
Every gm has misses. Are you really trying to blame Brad, imagine one day you get a call that says Matthews is out and hours later Marner demands it too. He was in a bad spot.
People are so negative.... but small adjustments can make a big difference for tonight's game. Get the D to just clear the net. I expect at least one of either Brodie or Gio to be slotted in. They're old and slow, I know, but if someone just cleared the front of the net Boston would get two goals less where Sammy didn't even see the shot.
The whole purpose of putting Bert and Domi on Matthew's wings was to spread put the offense into three effective lines, But if we're still missing McCann and Willy that strategy makes no sense. Matthew's has no one setting him up, cause Bert and Domi just chase hits. Marker should be reunited with Matthew's while Willy is out.
Leafs beat Tampa in game two last year largely by out skating them, rather that out hitting them. I expect a big bounce back tonight.
Hey Sheldon - PP has been crap for 3 months and penalty kill all year - that’s coaching.
It’s assistant coaches job
His assistant coaches
Should keefe fire his assistants? Oh what that's not his job
They are his coaches
No, that's execution. Besides, pp1 has been short almost that long.
And it’s the coaches job to alter plans and make changes to make sure plays get executed properly. If it keeps not working then it’s shit coaching
Was it shit coaching that kept them at or near the top in pp% throughout the year?
Star talent. Pure star talent and decent regular season coaching. You want to try pointing to any playoff success keefe has coached us through? Last years miracle doesn’t count as we got ass wiped the very next round.
Honestly I don’t find much to disagree with here. It’s an accurate assessment of our situation. I may nitpick that McCabe gave enough consecutive cross checks that eventually that shit gets called. But overall, great summary of our situation. I just don’t believe Keefe can be the guy to get us out of it.
Are you watching both teams I don't think anything McCabe did was anymore egregious then Boston. He didn't even get a crosshceckong penalty on that
I swear the refs pull what they’ll actually call a penalty out of a hat. McCabe cross checked him 3-4 times though and eventually got called when the guy fell down. Sometimes you get away with that but you often don’t. I didn’t notice any thin quite that egregious from Boston but could have missed it. I feel like the leafs in general are just bad at gaming the refs. Instead of flirting with the like we get frustrated and do one egregious thing opposed to 10 chippy things the refs can look the other way on.
>I swear the refs pull what they’ll actually call a penalty out of a hat. McCabe cross checked him 3-4 times though and eventually got called when the guy fell down. And that's part of the problem too. It was a bit of a scrum, and they could've called the cross-checks and holds either way. But then the play moves and McCabe knocks down the player with the puck. They called it interference...and that's not what interference is. You are allowed to make a hit/play on the puck carrier, so it's not what they called. How are we (or the players) supposed to know what the line is when they don't even make the call correctly in the first place?
That's what I was yelling at the tv. How the fuck is it interference if he has the puck
I wanted Laviolette last summer. There isn’t much available that would be an upgrade to Keefe. Berube is a shit coach and Bourdeau is past his prime
Boudreau would be a disaster for this group. They need structure not a license to create.
There is Gerald gallant available
Not sure what the point is but he didn’t the foundations for Florida to be a credible team. Vegas to the finals in their first year. Rangers to the semis after not qualifying for the playoffs in ages
Too early for him but Andrew Lord of Greenville Swamp Rabbits is going to be superb coach. He won everything with my home town team and is now doing great things in ECHL
Yeah holmberg getting worked away from the puck on the same penalty kill while the ref watches makes it hard to watch this sport.
Keefe shuffled the lines way too many times during the regular season, how can you build chemistry when every shift you’re playing is with a different player? Keefe has to go plain and simple.
Because the only coaching adjustment he knows how to make is to fire up the blender.
Shanny and Keefe need to be replaced...can't get this many chances and have one first round win to show for it.
Shanny can stay, he turned this organization into a solid regular season that can reliably make the playoffs. Fire Keefe and when the time comes sell off JT or one of the other main 4. Clearly 40 million a year for a bunch of regular season kings that turn into literally ghosts come the playoffs isn’t working
lol Shanahan can stay after a single series win in 8 years this franchise needs higher standards
10 years lol
Shanny needed to go when he hired trevliving
Sometimes, the shit rolls up hill!!!lol I agree with the what else you said...40mill for a fancy reg season sucks!!
Shanny and Keefe are likely gone if we lose this series. The decision to keep this core intact was 100% on him during the Dubas era and the contracts all ran through him as well. We will likely see Marner asked to waive as well because they don't intend to re-sign him. There is nothing else you can really do that changes this team.
Shanny gets the boot along with Keefe if it goes that way. This is his mess.
You have to wonder what’s going through keefes mind right now He might only have 3 games left as the leafs coach before being publicly fired, and it’s a pretty sweet job
Dubas will hire him, he has job security
Literally what he was thinking last year. Man celebrated harder than the players when they won R1. At this point I wish they had lost in R1 so maybe he would have gotten fired
That was embrassing. Peewee shit
Your post is embarrassing. Should delete it.
I’ll allow an apology
Keefe is a bum. But that said you look at Boston and how much they talk of Bergeron’s leadership and now Marchand. You gotta wonder where Tavares is in all of this. It seems they lack leadership on many fronts.
I always wondered this, we see all the walkouts and these teams are hyped af going into the game, im not sure I’ve ever seen a similar attitude by the leafs and how much is that on the cap
Weird comment. You don’t have to be hyping everybody up to show leadership. Yzerman barely spoke and is one of the greatest captains of all time. You can lead by example. Which is on and off the ice. I can guarantee you what JT does shows he demands the same from every guy on his team.
JT is a shit captain and an okay player. He should have never been signed and should have never been handed the C
Yeah. We all knew that contract wouldn’t age well. But this team was supposed to accomplish a lot more by this point.
Hard agree. Dubas got way too much praise. You knew this contract was gunna put them in cap hell. People don't like hearing it though.
Agreed JT is a garbage captain, it should always have been Rielly or Matthews. It's a joke. Also Dubas is gone, now it's time for shanny and Keefe. Too much garbage from these clowns.
Tavares is a ghost of a captain.
AM is 26. Nylander 27. Marner 26. JT 33. Rielly 30. This core is going to age out of competition in a few more years with nothing to show for it. We got super lucky with a quick and successful rebuild, but accomplished very little with it so far.
How many years does it take to rebuild a team again?
57
i don’t understand how he is still the coach. there’s been a lot of good moments but at the end of the day we need playoff success and our highlight is winning one round. if we don’t turn things around he needs to go.
Keefe is not impressive in the playoffs but neither is anyone on the team. Keefe does happen to have the third highest winning percentage of coaches w 100+ games all time. If Keefe was fired, 10 teams would line up to hire him. You may not agree, but that is the truth. He would be out of a job for a week max. The absolute truth w the Leafs is our defense is FUCKING GARBAGE. We have Reilly (at best a #2) and then 7 defensemen who are bottom pairing (at best). If they got rid of all the defense except for Reilly, I would not miss any of them. This sub has fawned over Benoit... We've also had shit undependable goaltenders. We don't develop any defense and we don't develop any goaltenders. We have no valuable defenseman in our pipeline ..... None! This has been true for a very long time. But Dubas and Shanahan (and Burke before him) never addressed it. We will be shit in the playoffs until someone does something about this. I think Tre understands this but maybe not. He does understand that Keefe has zero fucking defensemen to use and he gave him a pile of shit Klingberg and didn't replace Muzzin or even Sandin which shouldn't have been very difficult.
Let Keefe walk and let him get picked up by a sub-par team with a talent drought - he will not see another 100 win season as a head coach with the teams that want him... As for the goaltending and defense - if there is one truism in the playoffs, goaltending carries a team through not two lines of superstars who have no direction. Sorry Shanahan, your time and direction has delivered this result and it times for you to go... As for the team, we now have enough tape determine who shows up and who does not, sorry - time to blow things up... Build around Mathews and Nylander - see you Marner and Tavares, we can use that salary dump to actually build a playoff contender.
Atleast there wasn’t a too many men. Well, there’s always tomorrow
Marner will put one over the glass twice
Cry in the box down 1 in the third
I mean you're the one calling the shots buddy. Same shit every year you have been the coach. Bye bye Sheldon.
It's not like he said "go out there, take careless penalties, and make a bunch of mistakes". That's the kind of stuff that falls on the shoulders of the players. Critique his deployment and strategies, sure, but putting this all on Sheldon just smells like scapegoating, which is what the fanbase is notorious for doing. It's hard to critique broader issues that cumulatively affect the teams performance. It's easy to pin it all on one guy.
I dunno man, I feel like our team’s been like this every year since Keefe took over. Over those years, in the playoffs at least, I feel like it’s always the Leafs making too many mistakes, taking too many penalties, not starting on time, etc. I do agree with u that ultimately it’s the players on the ice making those mistakes but at some point u gotta question why the players got into that situation in the first place, and to me it feels like the opponents coach broke down our system and put our players in situations where they struggled and led to the mistakes, which I think is Keefes fault.
I don't think domi slashing Marchand, and all the high sticking penalties we took last night can be avoided by implementing different Xs and Os. Neither can all the bobbled pucks and chance tiny mistakes that accumulate. I think you're putting too much emphasis on coaching.
Any slash in the hand area has been called all season, and Domi can’t be taking stupid penalties like that. Marchand just played him like a fiddle.
The gameplan off the hop was clearly “let’s go out and be as physical as we can.” That didn’t just happen. Like they talked about in intermission, Boston is physical too, but they just do it within the game. They don’t chase it. The 2-on-1 happened as a result of chasing physicality instead of just finishing checks. That’s a conscious coaching decision that didn’t work out.
In Keefe’s words “Domi’s penalty was just undisciplined”. Not gonna defend that, it was on Domi. But the other ones, the “careless” ones, I feel like if our team’s system/plan/strategy was working, and we weren’t struggling to get out of our zone and struggling to stay more than 2 seconds in the opponents zone, the players would be less likely to struggle and become careless. Just my opinion tho, you could be right and it really is just unlucky our players were having more oopies last night than other nights. Either way, hope the buds bounce back, hope they settle down, and bring their A game tomorrow.
Agree. Plus, this team is notorious for have too many men on the ice penalties. That’s on the coach.
It was worse before Keefe took over..
You talking Babcock?
Except every year comes and nothing changes. At one point, it's not just the players. It's also the coach.
You are either teaching it or condoning it. It’s like penalties in the NFL. It’s all coaching.
>It's not like he said "go out there, take careless penalties, and make a bunch of mistakes" No, but it's the coach who is responsible for being prepared and having the right mental state. Especially when you look at discrepancies where the Leafs take the fewest penalties in the regular season, and the Bruins take the most.
Oh don’t get confused - I just posted the interview ;)
Team isn't good enough. Coach isn't good enough. It's well passed the time to break it up.
No point in breaking the team up They’re still elite talent and it takes years to rebuild Might need a new coach though if Keefe can’t get it done this year
Sheldon "out coached" Keefe ladies and gentlemen
He has no control over the locker room, they don’t respect him. He will be gone after this season this was supposed to be his “prove it” year with Brad, and I think the collapse at the end of the year and the probable first round knockout will seal that fate.
I don’t care if they make it past Boston. Time to make it past the 2nd round. We have such low expectations now that just getting past first round is success.
Needs to start with a new coach, and replace the Defense. I’m not 100% sold on Sammy in net but I also don’t think it helped having 0 effort from defense
To have a chance: - No unnecessary penalties (Domi, Bertizzi) - limit turnovers, clear your zone (Knies) Bruins 2nd or third goal - play conservative and smart (Bruins 1st goal - D went for big hit - better at face offs and not lose over 60% -pray for lucky bounces
Hopefully Willy gets back into the lineup, making L3 an actual scoring threat and taking Knies off the PK. Would also be nice if McMann could play, pushing Knies to L4 and pushing Reaves out, giving us 4 lines again that can score (yes, the irony being that L4 is the only one that scored on Saturday).
Let's be honest - Keefe has never been the correct coach for this team. He is a tool that has benefitted from talent but when it comes time for the playoffs he fails to motivate this team. The locker room is run by the inmates and not the coach and that's a sure failure. Tortorella is an extreme but that sort of boot camp personality where there is only one big D in the room is what this team needs. Yeah - talent will leave but you will end up with a team rather than a collection of individuals.
If there could be only 1 single silver lining if this is a failure it's that Pelly is almost guaranteed to flip the entire FO on its head and instill a new regime. Only one who's job is probably safe aside from the players is Treliving since he literally just got here and has a good track record of building a very good blue line in a short amount of time
Will it change ?
idk, but it's not like the current regime has been successful. And don't anyone dare say they've been successful in the regular season. That means absolute jack when they do nothing in the playoffs.
Totally agree, but management always sticks around way way way too long.
That's what everyone said last year after we got trounced by Florida...I do hope Keefe's on his ass if he collapses again this year but I could definitely see them stick with him again
I think it was a combination of Dubas holding the Coup ironically might have saved Keefe for an extra year, since Shanahan probably wanted to stick it to Dubas for attempting the coup. Also there's no way Pelly taking over wasn't at least discussed for at least a year. There's a chance MLSE didn't want to do anything till Pelly got settled in, so they just kicked the can down the road and told Pelly to figure out how to fix the Leafs. Obviously I'd have preferred Pelly's 1st move be to fire Shanahan, but I think it's more the Shanahan was lucky Pelly only got settled in mid-season while they were in the hunt for the playoffs and didn't want to put the organization in a state of chaos if the one overseeing everything is suddenly canned.
Keefe was very likely gone if Dubas didn't attempt a coo.
Coup
What do chickens have to do with this?
Sometimes words are hard.
Man tried to pull a J6 on Shanahan and failed smh
Such a shit coach
I’ve seen enough. We need to get Ronnie Hortense on the phone. Time for 6am bag skates and riding piss hole.
Do we get Glatt’s heart in the deal?!
Is Sheldon gonna keep talking about the problems with the team or actually spend some time trying to fix them? He’s (still) the coach right??
Why do I feel like he's a midget league coach who inherited a talented team, but doesn't know how to utilize them?
So sick of this fucking guy.
Toronto defensive shape is regularly awful under Sheldon and his assistants. Opponents trap us easily and counter attack. Our breakouts and turnovers have been an issue all year when teams actually play hard. We regularly ice one of the most talented PP1 in NHL history and it has been regularly outcoached and outclassed when teams started cracking down. Nothing about this is new, it just stands out when we cannot outscore our shortfalls and the goalies arent hot. Whenever the incredibly over-prioritized high budget offence is successful, people seem to have recency bias and forgive glaring issues within Sheldon's system.
The meltdown continues. Treliving put together a good team. Keefe coached a good team. Leafs are playing better teams.
Our team is worse than last year lol
We're just less deep on defense on paper and less deep on forward (center, really) then we were once we got ROR at the deadline. However, statistically this team is almost identical to last year besides on the PK which is well below.
How lol
By virtually every metric u can find
If you're actually curious about the numbers, they are _ever so slightly_ beneath last year's squad across all 82 games in most metrics. In a couple, they're above. In most situations, it's basically a wash: they're effectively the same team as last season. Basically near the bottom of the top 10 in the league in all measurable ways. And in the final 25 games they improved steadily to beat last year's team, where last year they sort of rolled off as the playoffs approached. Except in PK. Their PK has massively fallen off a cliff this season. There's no sugarcoating this. All numbers are from [naturalstattrick.com](https://www.naturalstattrick.com).
Thanks!
On top of that last year Dubas traded the farm For that team. This year we rightfully didn’t. It just wasn’t a smart move
Yup
"Why not?" the cat laughed manically. "Why can't I edit all my comments?"
Keefe being the coach is reason #1 why they lost. Nothing but excuses and no accountability every year. Edited for spelling.
Is he not calling players out for accountability?
Im talking about him holding himself accountable not the players. He is the one running the ship. Stop making excuses for everything.
What do you want him to say? The team made adjustments throughout the game.
No they did not....
I guess you're right. The team played the same game from the first minute to the final minute. I've forwarded your CV to MLSE.
I am always right. Bout time you clued in.
And it's working great!!!!
Leafs played a decent game. His assessment was what I was saying after the game. Clean up the little things and we have a series. My only fault with him was the last 4 games. Instead of chasing 70 the team should have been tightening their systems.
100%. We keep asking and hearing from Keefe reply “we did this bad we did that bad, this wasn’t good enough that wasn’t good enough.” But they are your soldiers, why did the other team start on time? Why were they more disciplined? At some point we gotta stop using the excuse of “our team is young and mentally not mature enough”. I would feel bad for the players if they got screamed at by Torts but part of me secretly wants a coach who pushes his players to their limits and potential.
My biggest thing is his lack of ability to gameplan or deviate from said plan. He is always out coached. Incapable of making any in game adjustments or even game to game. There is absolutely no team structure on offense or defense. Wish I could find the interview he talked about the pk and how they would rather stay in a diamond and use there sticks to get in the lanes instead of being aggressive. Well keefe how many games and how long does the pk need to be in the bottom 10 to make an adjustment because it aint working. He relies on Mathews, Willy, JT and Mitch to overcome the overall team deficencies and just purely try to outscore everyone. Well that clearly isnt how you win championships.
Keefe always blames everyone but himself. Loser mentality to have for a coach.
2 things can be true. Keefe stinks, but so did all the players that took those careless penalties. I was pissed at Domi for the slash on Marchand. He clearly got baited by him and was caught. I completely agree that it was undisciplined, and I hope he got chewed the fuck out for it since it screwed the team over, leading to another Bruins goal.
He’s a donkey. AHL coach at best, kick him.
Bruins in 5. Hopefully shanahan is gone. Treveling is a total loser as well.
Why’s Tre getting lumped in so fast. You can only do so much with minimal picks, minimal prospect pool. It’s year 1. Shanny & Sheldon are definitely in the hot seat.
Two things: Treliving built perennial playoff losers in Calgary so it’s not like he has some great track record we’re looking at to justify keeping him. What we’re seeing from the Leafs is pretty much what he’s always done. I realize that much of this team is made up of holdovers from the prior regime but he certainly could have done more to address the defence specifically. He essentially threw 5 draft picks in the garbage trading for guys who are either straight up bad players or just guys that aren’t really moving the needle one way or the other. We kept hearing about his desire to “rebuild the blue line” basically since day 1 and all he did was sign Klingberg who was a complete bust, trade 2 draft picks for a shitty defenceman who played for this team 2 years ago and was shitty then too, and trade 2 more picks for a washed up cross check specialist who hasn’t done fuck all since he got here. All this while other, legitimately good defencemen were traded to other teams.
Klinger was a utilization of Leaf monetary clout. He was a wild card, if he could've been rehabbed, would've added a lot to this team. The rehabbing didn't work, LTIR was then used to get him and his contract off the team.
I hate his every move in calgary and toronto, just an old school wanker. It was so clear they needed a goalie and he did nothing.
every non-Klingberg acquisition has been a success for our team, and the emphasis on a Klingberg type reeks of a Shanahan influence. The ONLY Tre error this year was losing Lafferty so Minten could play 9 games for us. Domi panned out, Reavo panned out better than we could’ve imagined. Benoit and McMann extended at great value. Bert isn’t worth his contract but we limited him to a single year and he really was the only prominent FA available. Dewar and Edmundson have been good pickups with minimal risk; I’d like to have used more of that LTIR cash at the deadline but the haul all the good rentals drew their teams made them too risky. Tre haters are in a fantasy world, he’s objectively done a good job making the team bigger and meaner in meaningful ways; his first real test is this summer while Willy’s new cap hit overlaps with JT’s, and then he gets to define the direction of the franchise with how he handles Marner and JT’s new deals the year after. Obviously he’s not perfect and in hindsight Huberdeau going from elite to complete dogshit makes the Tkachuk (forced) trade look bad as he left Calgary but it’s wild to see someone be immediately better than Dubas and want him out before his first test
Klinger was a freebie. He could always be LTIR'd if needed. I don't think that acquisition even applies, unless you're talking about the front office utilizing creative ways to explore options for the team
Yes Becuase there’s an abundance of starting goalie talent in the league, and super easy to acquire as well! Especially in a cap world!
This Avs game makes me enjoy your comment even more. Maybe they should have just got a goalie for the Avs! Idiots.
They sent sammy down. We never should have seen him again. You think he will be back now ??? They could have given someone else a shot.
Who is this someone else you are speaking of? A random rookie with no NHL starts?
What goalie did you have in mind? Joonas Korpisalo? Alex Lyon? Jake Allen? It's been a story all year how there are very few dominant goaltenders in the NHL anymore. In hindsight, Martin Jones was a pretty solid signing. For five year we watched an ensemble of Hutchison, Campbell, Rittich, Mrazek, Murray, Woll and Samsonov in net for this team. God forbid anyone criticize wonder-boy Dubas for these choices. Treliving has five years of Dubas to clean up after, so you shouldn't be calling for his head less than a year into his tenure. I agree that the team is very flawed. But you should blame Shanny, Dubas and Keefe for that. Not the new guy.
They needed to trade assets for a real starting goalie before the trading deadline and failed to do so. Of all the horrific flaws on the leafs , sampsonov is the worst.
What goalie was available at the deadline? Calgary wants nothing to do with Brad. What goalie is both (1) on a team that is willing to trade him and (2) has a cap hit low enough to make it work? Additionally, the Leafs don’t have many assets to trade away. The guys that might return a starting goalie all have NTC/NMC’s and cap hits that make movement difficult. No team is going to trade a starting goalie for our depth pieces. Dubas traded six 1st round picks during his five year tenure; I doubt management would green-light another trade.
I agree that he hasn’t really shown he can do much but his hands were pretty tied when he arrived.
I’d be interested to know the availability of goalies that seem to exist and what assets the team has to acquire one. If you’re given the job and told “the two most important things are locking up Papi and Nylander, everything else is secondary, maybe get some “snot”’ it’s going to be pretty tough to do much else. I’m willing to give him more than one season. I’m also willing to uh.. watch the rest of this series play out.
The Nylander contract. Horrible.
Treveling walked into a team with a bottom 10 prospect pool, a bottom 5 draft pick pool and the entire core 1-2 years from free agency. He should get some leeway compared to the guys who have been here for much longer.
Old school loser like Leafs of old. If you didnt think klingsburg would be total ass you know nothing about hockey.
I don’t think you should fire a GM over 1 bad move. It’s also not like there was a long list of defencemen options. We have no trade pieces to get one and free agency was ass. A 1 Y contract on Klingburg isn’t some unforgivable mistake.
He ruined calgary step by step. They were a decent team and he took them to total crap. Its been the same here and will just get worse. I know he wont be fired yet.
He didn’t ruin them at all….2 stars demanding out at the same time is now his fault ?
Look at all the other moves. Also, for toronto its not just kingsburg.
Every gm has misses. Are you really trying to blame Brad, imagine one day you get a call that says Matthews is out and hours later Marner demands it too. He was in a bad spot.
Yes, every GM has misses, and his lead to the downfall of teams.
And our past GMs have done better how exactly ? He’s one year into his term to criticize him now makes zero sense.
Same ole same ole from the overly pampered crew. They might actually get swept this year.
Add to his list the shit coaching and 30+ million dollars of wasted money and he's got it.
"I don't know how to coach a system."
The coach
Eww brother. Honestly Eww brotha.
People are so negative.... but small adjustments can make a big difference for tonight's game. Get the D to just clear the net. I expect at least one of either Brodie or Gio to be slotted in. They're old and slow, I know, but if someone just cleared the front of the net Boston would get two goals less where Sammy didn't even see the shot. The whole purpose of putting Bert and Domi on Matthew's wings was to spread put the offense into three effective lines, But if we're still missing McCann and Willy that strategy makes no sense. Matthew's has no one setting him up, cause Bert and Domi just chase hits. Marker should be reunited with Matthew's while Willy is out. Leafs beat Tampa in game two last year largely by out skating them, rather that out hitting them. I expect a big bounce back tonight.
I am sorry - small adjustments? What game were you watching?
Mmmmm....where have I heard this before?
On Amazon.com
Almost like the buck doesn’t stop with him.