Instant Analysis - Sheldon Keefe Fired By Maple Leafs ... Now What? 

It was the right move but I am sad about it. It was refreshing in his goodbye video to hear someone say “I take responsibility” with no excuses. Feels like we don’t get that almost ever

"I appreciate your process" is probably the most complimentary thing you could say to the Toronto hockey media, who aren't exactly known for "top tier behavior". Keefe's goodbye was all class. And this is coming from a Norris division Wings fan.

A classy farewell, I wish him luck in his future endeavors

Get rid of Shanny and Guy ASAP

Sheldon is a class act. That good bye actually made me a little emotional. Best of luck in your future endeavors Sheldon. It's too bad the boys couldn't get it done for you. You deserved it as much as anyone.

That’s a super classy moment from Sheldon. Kudos ! Thanks for sharing that Steve and for this video. I appreciate you separating the need for change from the quality of the person aka Sheldon. Well done.

GM - FIRED. HEAD COACH - FIRED. Guy who approved them? IMMUNE

I was expecting the title to be "Sheldon Keefe: An Era Wasted"

The outro by Keefe shows a tremendous amount of class. I hope he finds the success he deserves.

To be fair..... if you look at the length of time Sheldon Keefe has been in Toronto, the teams with more regular season points I believe are Tampa and Boston and that's it. It doesn't forgive everything but there is a bit of a curve to the grading

The second I heard the news, I was waiting for this video.

Sheldon Keefe’s video was really good. Pure class. Thank you for everything Keefe but it’s time for a change.

The fact this happened before shanahan tells me hes safe

Only one domino falling is not the ultimate answer.

Shannahan better be next. 10 years with him and 1 playoff round won.

That video from Keefe was beautiful, something about the simplicity of him being out on the water away from all of the noise (both literally and figuratively) was very powerful and touching.

The goodbye from Keefe at the end made me sad

Keefe's regular season record of 66.5% possible points earned is 3rd all time (min 100 games coached).

Keefe is a class act, I always liked him. The team just needs a change. Best of luck Sheldon!

I think if I'm San Jose, I'm looking at Keefe

Thank you Sheldon for some great regular seasons. Wish you well. Hopefully the next coach will bring this team towards the promise land + some good trades.

I know there are a lot of videos that come out about the leafs. I look forward to yours the most. SDPN - 5 Star

I am sorry that it wasn’t Shanahan, yes Keefe needed to go but they should’ve looked upwards as well

One of the things Babcock kept saying was, "we didn't start on time". Funny how Keefe said the same thing many times. The players on this team just doesn't seem to care about starting on time. I just don't understand how you can't be absolutely pumped to get on that ice and just GO! So this team needs a tougher coach, IMO.

The positive I take away from this years playoff disaster is that it gave players like Benoit, McCabe and Matthew Motherfucking Knies a chance to stand out, to make a difference which they absolutely did and some more playoff experience even if limited so. We have some great pieces here. Build on that around Matthew's and Willy and hopefully Domi and we got ourselves a playoff team.

these guys have now gotten 2 coaches fired for not showing up on time.

When you spend half your cap space on "superstar" forwards who can't score dirty goals, your coach isn't going to get through to them. The core other than Tavares is too arrogant to listen, and Tavares isn't the same player he used to be. I don't blame Keefe much.

From being shown the door, to a crowd wishing him their best, all with a 2 minute video. Well played, well played.

I'm just here to give engagement. Love you Steve, been around since year 2

Keefe is not a brilliant coach, but he is not responsible for poor roster construction.

This video is a long time coming

The keefe speech was surprisingly touching

'I'll take Least Surprising News Item out of Toronto for $1000, Alex.'

Classy move by Keefe. I think he's also feeling a sense of relief. A few days ago people wanted his head on a platter. Now he's chilling at the lake with his family. All in all, not a bad change.

Wow, who could have seen this coming aside from everybody?

Great video from Sheldon. I've always liked him and appreciated his amazing regular season record. It's unfortunate, but after this year's playoff loss I finally accepted that the team needs a change, and that change would probably start with firing Sheldon. I'm sure he'll land with a team in some capacity, and I wish him all the best.

It was pretty evident that the lack of Playoff success was weighing on Keefe mentally too. All those late game "over reactions" were signs of overthinking, trying to games manship, and perhaps more importantly, lacking confidence and trust in his players. Think about how many line mates has Matthews played with, as versus say how many MacKinnon or Kucherov has played with. I am not saying Leafs need Bourdeau type of "Teddy Bear", but someone that has confidence and clear expectation that his players will do their job.

Just saw your interview with CBC on this. Pretty good stuff!

Never thought this is how things would turn out when Dubas and Keefe won in the A. Such a disappointment

I have the upmost respect for Sheldon! He took responsibility in the exit interviews and today his video of gratitude today is everything in my opinion! He is not solely responsible for this mess. I wish him well and have no doubt he will find success.

I'm with you about not celebrating firings like I used to. I'm not in the media at all like you but as I've gotten older I've gained perspective and this is someone's job and life that we are talking about.

Not a Leafs fan, but the Tavares signing should go down as one of the biggest mistakes the Leafs made with their current core. Tavares isn't a great leader and that money wouldve been better spent on depth, defense, or goaltending.

I thought at the end he would jump in the water for some reason.

That video from Keefe is so bittersweet. Love his class and will miss him dearly but he knows what the fanbase wants and understands the job. I hope all the best for him

Like Rod Brind D’ Amour in Carolina Keefe a coach who consistently netted great regular season results. Players liked playing for him. The postseason yearly quest in NHL not summoning the outcomes that elevate a team from winning nightly to playoff excellence.

It goes beyond Keefe and the coaching staff and even the core. The entire organization, top to bottom, needs a culture change. Toronto is quickly becoming irrelevant due to it's lack of playoff success and the NHL doesn't do well when Toronto doesn't do well. I hate Toronto (I'm from Vancouver) but even I recognize that the Leafs have the biggest market and fandom in Canada and if the fans tune the team out as it's starting to (Steve being a very good barometer of the fandom's feelings on the team) then that's not a good thing. Shanahan needs to go for sure tomorrow and then Treliving needs to be relieved or demoted soon after and the organization rebuilt. I expect the Maple Leafs to have to take a big dip next year and maybe even miss the playoffs for the first time in a long time while they fix their problems internally.

It was time. Thank you Sheldon for your contribution.

A new era.

Man i hope the players feel a shred of guilt for this guy. He grew up a maple leaf fan like alot of us and knew what the team needed. The one thing ill say though is both keefe and dubas were given a gift roster and didnt do much with it. They both took over pretty much once all the drafting was done and their cupboards were fully stocked. How many other coaches would have had similar regular season numbers with talent like that on the team

not a bad coach tbh, he did get out coached by the bruins however.

Sheldon Keefe, Classy to the end. I wish him all the best wherever he ends up. (as long as it's not a team in the East)

With the coach gone, being the first blamed for defeat, the core players should be kept to prove the coach and whatever system he applied was really at fault. Some new players at the second level would maybe make a difference. With a new coach, another bad year surely would justify major player and management changes.

Culture, accountability, a standard isn’t going to come from a coach. Your best players, your top dawgs needs to set and enforce these things.

Well done Steve!!

Wish him the best of luck wherever he goes. He wasn’t the main problem but things were getting stale.

I never thought Keefe was a Bad coach, but not a great coach either, until you consider his record. Despite the lack of post-season success, a 72% Point percentage is pretty incredible, and the lack of post season success doesn't fall solely on him at all. It's a team game, and it takes 22 players and 16 wins and 110% effort and even still sometimes its nit enough

so now we are on TORONTO COACH DRAFT WATCH. curious to see if any players or staff additionally get the boot

Class act, it just didn’t work

Love hearing Dutch Van Dangle Glynn’s voice, keep it raspy baby!

The most comparable coach to Sheldon Keefe would probably be Todd McLellan with the late 2000/early 2010 San Jose Sharks. Fantastic regular seasons but could not win the playoffs.

Yep... the page is turning, I wish Sheldon Keefe all the best for his future endeavours.... and thank him for the great memories and... let's say hard falls with the leafs. But , let's go, Leafs, we love our team, and we want to get to the top of that mountain....

@Steve Dangle should be a TML head coach

Anyone think they will move Shanahan to another position (ie. fluffy advisor role) tomorrow? Face saving way to Shanacan him. For example, Special Advisor to the Zamboni driver.

The Leafs should be looking at Gardiner MacDougall. Maybe not as the head coach right away (he doesn't have any NHL experience), but he knows how to win. Just led UNB to a perfect season (43-0 including exhibition games), won the U-18 World Championship going 7-0, and won the Memorial Cup with the Sea Dogs in '22, just to name a few of his accomplishments.

Such a class act by Keefe, Hope he finds success in his future endeavors

I wouldn't be surprised if Sheldon Keefe one day returns as head coach, perhaps sooner than later. When the players who were rewarded massively for failure are no longer granted the privilege of wearing the Maple Leaf, it will become much more clear exactly what Sheldon Keefe brought to the table. I wish him all the best.

Can’t wait to watch him lift the cup somewhere else like Kessel, Bozak, Kadri and more :/

I live in Boston and even I know the Leafs should have SPANKED the Bruins from game 5 on. I paid money to watch the Bums In Blue beat the B's. I will say Keefe's coaching game 5 on was amazing. The team let him down.

I wish Patrick Roy was still available. a Frenchman is what is needed to finally turn this team around.

Class act by Keefe. He was a good coach, just could not get this team over the hump. I will look back fondly of Keefe and how he coached this team for 5 seasons.

It's a brand new era for the Leafs under Head coach... Darryl Sutter.

Time for Brendan Shanahan to take a step back, allow Treliving to make the major surgery necessary to trade Marner, make the defence and goaltending better or we will be back after round 1 having this discussion again next year. The coach can only deal with what he has on the roster and work around the weaknesses to some extent. Player recruitment/retention dooms even the best coaches of all time.

Even when they fire people Canadians are really nice.

The 1 for 21 power play cost them the series and that is on Boucher.

Don't give a shit how nice keefe is Feelings are what gave us 8 years of failure

I like it how even tho they made it to the second round last season, Dubas still got fired. They took Boston to 7 games this season and Keefe got fired. I guess next season if they’re still stuck in the first round exit mode, then Shanny gets fired?

After the Montreal series, how did he not get fired? Ridiculous! The Shanahan snake Should be kicked to the curb! Extremely low standards! Ugh...

9:04 correction - Jason Spezza scored the other goal in that game

The most important task of any new coach of the Maple Leafs coach is to come up with the "we were really close" speech after they get bounced in the first round

The power play coach, the goalie coach, they’ve got😂 togo

Even though this change was absolutely necessary, his farewell had me emotional... This team has me feeling like im listening to r & b break up songs

Awesome and Now Hire Finnish Coach Jukka Jalonen Greetings from Helsinki, Finland🇫🇮🇨🇦🇫🇮🇨🇦

Why does the flat cap never come into the discussion? Having signed Matthews and Marner with the idea that the cap is going to go up $12-$15 million over the length of their contacts, and it goes up $3? That's absolutely killer.

18:26 Steve has a grin that looks like his faith in humanity was renewed. That video was nice.

Sadly it was the right move for this point in time, equally as sadly this may have been due to poor management. Lets see if the Leafs organization have the guts to make NECESSARY CHANGES everywhere including at the top and on the ice!!!

I feel for the guy as well, because he's actually not a bad coach, but you cannot have the playoff records they have and continue to expect that the team nor the coach will miraculously make some drastic changes that improve the one area they've failed at every year: making a run in the Stanley Cup playoffs. He may get nabbed up by Dubas down in Pittsburgh, heck any team would love to have a coach with that record. Don't forget though, a coach is only as good as his players, so obviously getting a role with a contending team would be preferable, but at the same time if you're the owner of a great team that hasn't been able to crack the playoff code and you see Keefe available, are you leaping to hire the guy whose playoff results were far worse than his regular season? He's got the right idea for now: take some time away from the game and spend it with his family, and before long someone will be looking for a coach and will call upon him.

Keefe wasn't the problem. They hired "core 5" who are 'regular season specialists' and are incompetent in the playoffs.

"The Leafs can't score". That is the issue. PP sucks. Defensive teams play the trap. I actually thought Keefe's coaching in the last 3 games is how this team needs to play. Mirror the opposition. They shut down our scorers. We shut down theirs. A mistake cost the series. Had we won, we would play Florida. Lose. Keefe gets fired. Win, then he is a hero and gets to ride out his extension. From the business side, I never really understood why Treliving signed a 2 year extensione when everyone knew this was the year Keefe was on the edge. Well, Keefe gets some financial security for 2 years (unless he is re-hired, then I am sure in the contract a new job mitigates the obligation for the Leafs to continue to pay him). So is Treliving's decision another bad management decision? This leads to me next belief. Tre cannot make anymore mistakes. He has to move either JT or MM. We need the cap space for Bert, Domi and Edmundson, a goalie and another D. We have Knies and more young forwards coming. I like MM, but he is a tradable asset and it only makes good business sense. He could fit in with Chicago for their first round # 2 pick 😂 Wishful thinking!!

It's tough that this decision had to be made, but hopefully it's the beginning of something better for the Leafs

I would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Toronto had players who knew how to crank it up in every game come playoff time

Outside looking in, I could never, for the past how many years now, understand why people thought the Leafs were a Cup-built team. They were poorly built, and that is not the coach's or the players' fault. They need to do what both the Oil and the Canucks did which was hire brass who have real track records.

His farewell message was pure class

Bruce was just hired last season as a senior advisor to Niagara. He’s not heavily involved, his son Ben also just took over as head coach. So he theoretically could take on a role with the Leafs in some way and keep the advisor role, I would think.

The leafs and Shanahan are so transparent. They should’ve fired Keefe last year but had they done that then losing this year would’ve put Shanahan on the firing line. By waiting a year the Leafs make it appear they’ve done something. That way they don’t have to trade any of the core 4 and also buys Shanny an extra year where he prays they don’t flame out in the playoffs next year. If they do then he’s definitely next.

This is what happens when the players run the team, coach can't criticize them or call them out and then has to walk it back 24 hours later. This team acts like the kid who gets yelled at and then says "Do you know who my dad is".

Fair play, Sheldon Keefe. He'll certainly be back in the NHL as a Head Coach.

The Rangers fired Vignault, who was one of the best and most successful coaches in Rangers history. The teams he led year after year deep into the playoffs including 9 periods from a Cup, were no where near as talented and deep as the current Rangers team. Then after hiring the worst pro coach in hockey, David Quinn....who is astonishingly bad.... they immediately improved massively by hiring Gallant. They fired him for nearly the exact same result in a game 7. Its honestly way different in Toronto and NYC. The media almost makes decisions for teams. For worse more often than better. But in this case i don't think they lose that much by replacing this coach. It's probably more important they make some alterations to their mix. As Steve has said many times

I heard Keefe will be coaching Nebraskas’s team next year when the first season of the Major League Hockey kicks off.

Thank you and bravo Sheldon 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

And right there, is why I think... Keefe's an NHLer through and through. Maybe not with the Leafs, but... somewhere. You don't find guys that... own it, the good and the bad, like he did there. "That's the job, and I didn't get it done; I take responsibility for that." And I mean how many coaches... hell, how many players ON THAT TEAM take responsibility like that? Right on the chin? Not many. Even at the PROFESSIONAL level of the sport, not many guys have that kind of insight to say "that's on me" without dressing it up with excuses or apologies. Notice his tone and his very *careful* choice of wording; this wasn't an apology. He's not sorry, he shouldn't BE sorry, and he KNOWS THAT. The Toronto Maple Leafs might have played some of their most consistently good hockey EVER under this man. And if you want, you can go back and look through this yourself, it's absolutely baffling, but let's put this on paper for you. A 100 point season, in an 82 game schedule, is a .610 point percentage. Meaning if you're a 100 point team, you're coming away with a point in 61% of games; in 61% of games, you are STAYING EVEN, or moving up in the NHL standings, somewhere. In *Maple Leafs History*, actually further, go back to the Arenas for this it still holds true. The Leafs have only finished with a .610 point percentage, that's a 100 point pace, for three seasons in a row, once. Under one coach. That coach is Sheldon Keefe. They've been on a 100 point pace for 2 seasons in a row, just twice in their history. 2017-18, and 2018-19, under the guy you FIRED for Sheldon Keefe; Mike Babcock. The time before that? Can't ask your parents, they don't remember. Can't ask your grandparents, they wouldn't remember. Can't ask your GREAT grandparents, they wouldn't remember. 1933-34 and 1934-35. On your 1967 CUP roster, your most recent one, there were 8 players ALIVE the last time it happened, and the NEXT time it would happen was still *50 more years off*. Sheldon Keefe has done it his entire Toronto Maple Leafs career. Something the Toronto Maple Leafs, for a CENTURY, could not do with any reliability, Sheldon Keefe helped to do in 5 years there. And not in a pushover division, he did it in a *bloodbath* Eastern Conference. He gets one "break year" in 2020-21 in an allegedly weak Canadian Division where he still had to deal with Edmonton, Winnipeg and Calgary all year. To me, that's not somebody you laugh off of the ice. That's not somebody you call a failure of a coach. And that's not a firing that you celebrate, it's one that needed to happen, but this isn't something you should see and think "yeah, serves him right". This is sad, if anything, that Sheldon Keefe was brought onto your team, was a key contributor in one of the best eras of Leafs teams EVER, period, and his exodus was STILL a borderline necessity because of systemic inability to get over the hump. Leafs fans, your organization has issues. Deep seated, perpetual issues, love or hate the coaches and players, all the Mike Babcocks, and Sheldon Keefes, and Mitch Marners, and Phil Kessels of the world, they've NEVER been your issues. Their actions, their words and their struggles, even at their worst, were SYMPTOMS of terrible issues with culture and structure, and they legitimately go back as far as the 1960s, some of them. You can comb through this organization top to bottom; you can't blame it on one person. NOBODY currently involved, or who has BEEN involved in the last 15-20 years, is a true contributor to your franchise's issues; they're all products. Products of fuckups that can almost universally be traced to one man, and you know his name; and he's answering for his sins which extend FAR past hockey in a place far harsher than Toronto... All I can say is I really hope you get it together, whether that means the core gets shaken up or not, no *franchise* deserves this. No franchise deserves THIS. Especially not one that's been a part of this league since day one. And ironically, the team you share that origin with is stuck in a similar rut to the one that you guys started in in the 70s and 80s... history likes to repeat.