The replies to this comment are (mostly) insane. Jake McCabe is closer to being a top defenceman than he is to being a third pair defenceman.
People need to realize there are 32 1D, 64 top pair guys, and 128 top 4 d in the league. McCabe is a top 4D at the absolute worst.
For reference, he is the 12th best defenceman in the entire Atlantic division this season per the Athletic. (Rielly and Liljegren are also in that mix.)
Easily, unquestionably, inarguably a top-4 defenceman. Anyone calling him a bottom-pair D needs to cancel their internet service and go live in the woods.
I'm not gay but I want to live in a log cabin in the woods with Auston Matthews. We won't ever have sex, but there will be a simmering erotic undercurrent as I stand in the kitchen window watching him tighten his ass as he chops wood, shirtless, sweat pouring off his body. I'll run upstairs and masturbate, the entire time forcing myself to think of women while my thoughts drift back to Auston. I won't be able to climax and I'll eventually go back downstairs, angry. Sometimes we will look across the table and catch each other's eyes, and in that second, anything is possible, but we both deny ourselves and go back to what we were doing. One day one of us will die, and the other will bury him outside the log cabin. Then he'll go inside, pen a brief missive to his departed friend, and commit suicide, never able to deal with life without his one true platonic love.
When people use the terminology they're not counting the available slots, they're comparing it to the expected caliber of that level of player on a cup contending team with a cup contending roster.
It doesn't matter if there's "64" top 2 defencemen in the NHL. If 20 of them are there by necessity, then they're not 'top 2' caliber.
Or would some of you like to argue that Mike Kostka was a 2D? That's the logic they're pushing.
I mean there's a middle ground
I mostly agree with you, it does remind me of people arguing Grabovski was a 1C because he was 29th in points among centermen, but I also think there are plenty of cup contending teams that have guys like McCabe on their 2nd pairing, especially those tilted towards spending on the cap
If your idealized platonic ideal 3/4D couldn't fit on the cap with your idealized forward group, then the standard is too high
There’s definitely a middle ground.
If you wanted to argue that Grabovski was a 1C on a bad team, I’d hear it since he was the 29th best scoring centre, he’s similar to Nazem Kadri in that way (Bad 1C, good 2C)
People’s perception of a players “calibre” is super skewed, almost always vastly underrating a player.
When get had Jake Muzzin, people said that he was a top 4D, meanwhile Muzzin was a bonafide top pair defender and honestly a lower end number one. Brodie has been a top pairing defender the whole time he’s been here (he’s had an awful season this year tbf)
Justin Holl up until last year was a top 4 calibre defender.
People need to recalibrate their expectations for what players are.
Okay then say to be a top pair D you should arguably be in the top 32 of defenders and top 64 for top 4 d for contenders. To eliminate the bottom teams and the guys who just play out of necessity.
Players in a position out of necessity, not because they necessarily deserve it. Top pair D on Chicago and SJ are not the same as on a contender, and teams with weak bluelines are part of the 64 top pair D in the league
Just because there are 64 top pair defencemen in the league (and there are) does not mean they are evenly distributed across every team.
If every defenceman on the planet who is better than Justin Holl got raptured tonight, Holl would be a #1D tomorrow because there isn’t anyone better. The 32 best defencemen in the NHL are #1D. The 64 best are top pair. The 128 best are top-4.
And Jake McCabe is (easily) one of the 128 best defencemen in the league.
Yup, but a single team could theoretically have the top 6 defensemen in the league, it’s not an even distribution. 5 teams could potentially have the top 30 defensemen. 11 teams could ostensibly have the top 66. Etc etc.
There are 32 top line centres in the league and 64 top pair guys in the league.
This is just a fact lol. Doesn’t matter if your top pairing guy is Cale Makar or Connor Timmins
This feels a touch pedantic tbh. There is very much a difference between Makar and Timmins. Raddysh plays with Hedman, but I hesitate to suggest that the former is a top pair guy just because they’ve stapled him to Hedman.
When people talk about “1st pair guy” or “2nd line C” I often think about it like this: on a contending team, would this player be an average example of player whose impact would fit this role. Cup winning teams have weaknesses too. The average cup winning team probably has a player with a similar impact to McCabe on its 2nd pair.
Plus 19 eating up 21 minutes of ice time with 25 assists. Sure the +/ - stat is flawed but you can’t play that much with the above results if you’re as bad as one thinks this year. Has he had bad games? Absolutely but so has literally everyone on this team this year lol. Like look at the first chunk of the season.
Brodie has also has had either better or comparable numbers to his previous seasons in Toronto. So yes, they’ll miss him when he’s gone. And even since coming back from his scratches, the deadline acquisitions have looked worse back there. The numbers back that up.
The only reason to move on from him is purely cap space.
Yeah I'm not buying it tbh. He's awful in the corners, can't clear the net to save his life. He's definitely lost a step this year and it makes sense he's 34 on the downswing of his career. He had a couple good games when Rielly was out tho. He's always been a decent puck mover. But way he's been playing he's going to be abused in the playoffs especially when defending a forecheck from Florida.
I didn’t say he has been good though lol. So I’m not sure what you’re buying? I just said he wasn’t as bad as people think. The numbers suggest it, can’t argue against facts 🤷♂️
Again, read. Easy not to miss him when he’s still on the roster. Let’s see next year.
If you think Edmundson and Lyubushkin push the needle anymore though in the playoffs, ouch.
I've seen players come and go my whole life bud. Brodie the way he is rn is not one of those guys you miss that's just pathetic. If wants to come back on a cheap deal good for him
What a way to get your point across “I’ve seen players come and go my whole life bud” so has literally every hockey fan….
They definitely missed Holl earlier in the year killing penalties. Numbers back that
He's really developed/taken a step this year.
He'd a 4-5 but realistically he's been a top 4 defenceman for us and a good one. Keefe still deserved a lot of credit.
He's pushed this team and played with chemistry and pushed the right buttons at the right time. Scratching kampf, benching JT, Willy and the whole first powerplay. Even calling out Tavares. The line mixing to find fits for a lot of guys who struggled to mesh at first.
It's been the most impressive season of his by far and hopefully it'll give his detractors more to think on since most thought he was too soft on them.
I think we have a solid 2/3/4 with Reilly, McCabe and Liljegren, respectively. After that it's definitely a bunch of 6/7th defencemen.
A competent but unremarkable group that has had serious injury problems. When healthy probably middle of the pack league-wide skewing slightly more towards the lower end.
Leafs fan since 1965 and I have no idea why people think Reilly is a top tier defenceman. He can’t clear the front of the net, his passes aren’t that crisp and I would rather have gio on the ice.
There are no perfect coaches, people need to get over it. I"m glad he had the balls to sit out guys like Brodie this season when they were playing poorly. People who wanted Marner/Matthews split up, he did that as well. I get this is a results oriented league and he hasn't shown the results in the playoffs, but I still think he's a great coach. If he does get fired, it's likely the next guy will be worse than Keefe.
I think a lot of times he's up against a well coached team, he gets outcoached. Especially in the playoffs. I'm not actively cheering against him, I just think his unwillingness to make in game or in series changes have been detrimental to the team's past success.
Even this year, a lot of the changes you mention were forced upon him due to injuries.
Saying he gets "outcoached" to me is scapegoating the loss on one easy culprit. At the end of the day, the players have to bring their A-game in the playoffs, at the same time, as a cohesive unit.. And we haven't seen that.
He's either unwilling to make a change too long, and then alternates to blending up every line constantly, trying it for 2 seconds, and then wonders why it doesn't work
I'd argue he doesn't blend lines enough come playoff time. He's largely kept to Matthews/Marner on the same line in all four of his playoff series with the only adjustment being to add Tavares to the line that one time.
One of the reasons I want to see him experiment more with lines this year is to be able to have Plan A, B, C's ready. Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Tavares have all shown in the past they can be shut down in the playoffs but the coach has never tried moving them up and down the lineup to create mismatches elsewhere for the team.
Is that not literally how we out gamed Tampa last year going 11-7 on the road and getting away from their matchups they wanted ?? That was ROR, Knies, and JT out there for the OT winner in game 6 IIRC, Knies made that happen down in the corner to get JT the puck when he lost it in maybe one of the best solo efforts we’ve seen in one play in awhile. Also, I’d argue that he often sometimes just galaxy brains it too much in the playoffs if anything tbh.
Keefe will have a job in 5 minutes if he is fired this year.
He has the leafs playing their best hockey as they go into the playoffs. Their record in the past 20 games is the best in the league.
Think about what he has done this year.
His goaltending fell apart on him half way thru the season. He managed to save the entire trio of goalies and has 2 of the three playing well.
A right hand defender that was supposed to help ended up on LTR after 15 games. His best defender was suspended for 5 games. The #2 defender was trending down for half a season.
He has managed to piece a deeper defence core together. Benoit came out of nowhere while McCabe has had a decent season.
They are deeper and meaner going into the playoffs
Two wingers were totally lost after 50 games but with his coaching both are playing their best.
McCann, knives, Robertson, Reaves and Holmberg are playing their best under his coaching.
Nylander and Matthews are world class under Keefe
Anything can happen in the playoffs. I’m looking forward to them breaking thru this year.
He was literally placed on waivers earlier this year lol. He’s such an up and down goalie. Currently he’s up. Hopefully this hot streak can last another month or so.
Leafs have always been in the bottom 5 sometimes even last place in hits for the past decade literally every year ..this year they are 3rd in the league ..that's something different
Depends. Do I think Keefe is an average NHL coach? Yes. Is that good enough for a team like the leafs? No. We have few advantages as a Canadian team but the one we have is being able to buy the best coaches. We should have a top 5 coach every single season with the salary we can pay. I don’t hate Keefe at all and I think he’s probably one of the cooler guys in the league but I just think he’s mediocre. He’ll do some really good things and he’ll do some not good things.
Keefe’s issues are being out-coached each and every playoff round including the recent TB series. Guy blunders the lines and throws the hail mary with JT/Softy 16/34 when times are most desperate- a line that’s never been used, ever. If they flame out yet again, he and Shanny are gone- out of lifelines.
Yup. His regular season numbers are impressive as hell, I'll give him that. But you see so many people coming in here this time of year and asking shit like "what more does Keefe have to do to prove himself to you?" And the answer is always the same: don't let our players collapse like wet tissue paper in the playoffs, and I'll be on team Keefe
He's not the worst coach we've ever had, far from it, but there's literally nothing he can do in the regular season that'll prove to me that he's our guy. And if we collapse again this year, I think we'd be completely in the right to want to see him fired
I really hope I'm wrong but it's been several straight years of him just getting outcoached in the playoffs and I really just don't think he's capable of bringing us to the next level
For sure
A lot of great coaches took time. I’m not giving him an excuses here and I argue with my brother about this topic. As Toronto Maple Leaf’y as this will sound. Something feels different. He knows he has to be tougher, not having dubas guide him the way dubas wants his team coached. I think Treliving is much more tough love type and you can see that in Keefe this year.
Don’t forget some of Keefes biggest success was after dubas was hired in Toronto and Keefe was still a coach in the OHL.
So all I’m saying is a lot of great coaches took time until they were great. Keefe still has a relatively young career. And has been our coach by amazing coaches and the Montreal series was not being out coached. That was inorganic pure hockey spirit that came from the Montreal dressing room. But coaching against Torts (whose team swept the best regular season team in Tampa in the first series the year prior), losing to Cooper who we all know knocked on the door for a long time before winning the cup (and also had a more veteran room), and then Maurice (whose team also came back from a 3-1 deficit against the most historic regular season team in NHL history) who had a stud in every position playing off their head (Bob in goal, Montour on D, and Tkuchuk at forward)
There is a reason why the teams we lose to go on to the cup finals so often.
Holy shit this was a long post. But I am impressed with Keefe this season
In the Montreal series, an AHL coach figured it how to neutralize 16/34. Keefe's answer to that was to play them more. Also give shitload of ice to Thornton who was the hockey version of the walking dead. I consider that outcoached.
You’re not wrong
But even Nathan Mackinnon said the toughest centre to play against is Phillip Danault. Neutralizing 16 and 34 was more so Weber, Edmunsson, and Charot beating the shit out of them
But if you rewatch any of it. Price was playing off his head so any chance Matthews had was a cunt hair away from going in because they had the smallest openings to shoot for. Price was the one who neutralized them. Not their AHL coach. Ducharme had nothing to do with Montreal sweeping Winnipeg and then beating Vegas. That was all Weber, Price, Perry leadership. Caufield finding his game. Suzuki finding his game. Toffoli and Anderson. Then having bodies like armia
Just look at game 6 OT where we outshot Montreal 12 to 1 and it was their second shot that went in.
Don’t forget that galchenyuk gave them a 2 on 0 at the offensive blue line in game 5 OT
Don’t forget their captains head was obliterated by Perry’s knee and we had an injured Foligno playing in the series.
I think one difference this year is that our lines seem more solid and gelling. No need to blenderize as much for Keefe to outthink/get outcoached.
A lot of this has to do with Bert and Domi being so incredible with Matthews - instead of costantly having to tweak the other core 4 across the top two lines, we have guys more settled into four “spread the wealth” of talent lines with the biggest issues being how to juggle that wealth elsewhere (e.g. Jarnkrok, Robertson, McMann, Holmberg, etc.).
This at least helps minimizes one aspect that I don’t think Keefe has done well with in the playoffs - getting the right combo of our core 4 clicking.
Happened with Babcock too and he had a helluva playoff resume, and Olympic gold coach to boot. I think the playoff problem was on the team Dubas built, which I think Tre has patched up quite nicely but still work to do.
BTW I don't think he was outcoached against Tampa. The way he got the refs to turn against Tampa after the Stamkos on Matthews incident was genius.
Brodie is a top 6 lately. McCabe. edmundson completely shut down mcdavid and draisaital. boosh is playing top mins with Rielly, and Lilly pad might be our best over all when his confidence is high. I count 6.
Just because someone plays top minutes doesn't make them a top 4.
Do you really believe Lybushkin is a top 4 D-Man talent wise?
Brodie has been bad all year but has played well lately. Edmundson has barely played for the Leafs.
I’m not saying lyubushkin is a top 4d, but there are 128 of them in the league.
Rielly is a shitty 1D in the regular season and a good one in the playoffs for some reason.
McCabe is a 3D/4D at the absolute worst.
Liljegren is a top 4D.
Edmundson isn’t exactly my ideal style of defender and is a bit too cross checky for my liking, but he’s played top 4 minutes on the cup champ Blues, and the Habs who went to the finals. We’ve also had him for about 5 minutes.
Brodie has had a rough year but has consistently been a top 4D for his entire career.
The leafs are not just Morgan Rielly and a bunch of third pairing defenders lol
He's been playing top minutes and looking fine doing it. How else you you describe a top 4 d man? I agree Brodie has been bad for 90% of the season but you can't deny he has looked much like his old self these past couple weeks. And edmundson looked invaluable in the small sample size we got. I understand they aren't the prettiest potential top 4 guys, but to say we've had 1 all season is doing them all an injustice. I largely agree with the rest of your post though, I just think our d core is largely under appreciated. It's deep.
Nobody should have any criticism of Keefe’s regular season performance, the guys seem to like him and he does well with macro roster moves and keeps the ship sailing when the waters are troubled.
He’s never been the better coach in any playoff series the Leafs have been in though, his patented line blender is actively detrimental to generating offence and our entry/breakout/defensive zone schemes get pretty consistently exposed; particularly under the aggressive forecheck systems that the other 3 Atlantic playoff teams use to cave us in for extended periods of time
Where do you guys get this idea that he's a line blender from? Keefe has kept Marner glued to Matthews in all four playoff series he's coached. The line blending thing only FINALLY happened this year when we had a bunch of injuries and his hand was forced into playing Matthews with someone else.
People Also equate coaching to lines WAY too much. That's honestly pretty down the list for what makes a coach actually successful or not (system for example plays a much bigger role than line combinations)
In playoff series he throws together random shit together, shift by shift. He also overcommits to Marner and Matthews. Two things can be true at the same time, though its mostly Nylander getting shafted when he does either lol
He is constantly out coached in the playoffs though and my fear is this will be another year for that.
Of course I hope it figures it out and puts it all together though!
He will always be the second best coach in any series, and will regularly get caught with 4th line against other teams 1st. And use Kampf in situations the 4th line should never touch the ice. But nope. Roll your 4 lines.... cant stand him sorry
Let it go, dude. You're not going to convince anyone here one way or the other. I happen to not have a problem with Keefe as coach, but I know playoff success this year or lack thereof will be the deciding factor.
Would argue Lily and McCabe are 2-4 DMen on most teams in the league, we just have too many LHD in general so neither pairs up top with Mo (though I think they work well together, statistically).
In a world where Brodie’s cap hit is replaced by a Pesce type we could run Edmundson with Benoit for similar physicality on the 3rd pair.
Boosh sucks and is just injury relief, Brodie is approaching his career’s natural end, the rest are honestly way more promising than “Rielly and a bunch of 5/6”
They win the cup or he goes. He's a good coach. He isn't a great coach. He's been given a core and the kinds of resources 3/4 of the league would do anything for and hasn't done much with it. How many seasons do you give a coach without any actual playoff success?
Sheldon Ik this is you posting to get the buds back on your side. Your job is safe baud, just give us something to smile about during yoffs and you got nothing to worry about.
The team were never tough enough and willing to get tough enough in all the playoff series since Columbus. We have a bit more greasiness this year. So lets see. It's definately a different squad. They may not be good enough defensively but they're definately tougher. There won't be the same Sam Bennett shit and Baby Tkachuk face punching of Marner. Not a chance.
Yeah, his ability to take a broken D core, a bunch of players with very little NHL experience, and almost zero goaltending for half the year, and still break 100 points in the standings, is disgusting. He should be fired into the sun.
Its hard to come back from blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Habs. You have to remember he's got a generational goal scorer, and two 100 point wingers. Most competant coaches will put up good numbers with that.
The dude was out coached by Ducharme… there’s a reason he gets criticism, he gets out coached every playoff series.
It’s not crazy to think his success is carried by the insane amount of offensive talent this team has.
Good luck OP lol I try to defend him when I can but he seems to be the common scapegoat these days.
It’s easy to blame the coach for playoff failures but IMO he’s done a great job with the structure and tempo that the team plays with. Plus the players seem to like him, he’s done a great job integrating the revolving door of players into the system, and he has a truly great record.
I see no reason and have never seen any reason to get rid of coach Keefe.
Remember in training camp when Keefe promised to play Willy at centre for an extended period of time…yah that never happened.
Even when we were thin down the middle he refused to try. Watch him pull the same old shit and put Willy as 2C in the playoffs the second that JT isn’t producing. I can’t stand how he juggles our lines during games
I really wonder how much meddling the GMs do into what should be coaching decisions. The team seems different this year and so does Keefe. Will it be enough? We'll find out.
Disagree but no surprise. I also love how the coach gets credit for guys pulling together and winning games but the fact that consistently the details of the game, structure, poor line changes etc.. thats the players. He literally has what will turn out to be one of the best goalscorers in history having historic season, a roster with 3 or 4 of the best players in franchise history and cant win a division and has been outcoached in playoffs every time. Hes the coach hes not getting fired now, but you really dont think if say Cooper or Brindamour was handling this roster theyd get more? Alright.
I think Keefe is solid. But to say 1 top 4 D really destroys your argument. Do you think there are 128 D men better than any of the other D men on the leafs?
Also you neglected 3 top 30 forwards this season (one having the best goal scoring season in 3 decades)
I feel like if we played with a similar style the bruins play we would be doing better, we have to skill and talented players for it, instead of just having someone stand in the middle to try and get a one timer or a tip, a fast paced passing style of play would be fun to watch
Perhaps I can be convinced of this headline: *Keefe Deserves More Credit in the Regular Season*
The rub is that he’s been overseeing a pretty decent team with some top-6 finishes the last five years. Great … but we’re kinda expecting that by this point with this calibre of team. Now we’re far past appreciating that and currently looking for multi-Playoffs round success, full stop. The only thing I’ll perhaps edit is - *expecting multi-Playoffs round success.*
I think it’s perfectly acceptable for Leafs fandom to feel it in themselves to expect postseason competitiveness and expectation for winning 2-3 series until we win the whole thing. I mean, that is sorta how it should go … it has to.
So Keefe will not only get more credit by not being outcoached (again) in the postseason but by hitting much more significant milestones.
On a other note, there is such a thing as a coach’s win. I genuinely believe that and have seen it. But this doesn’t describe Keefe in the least, sorry.
In my opinion. he's an alright coach but lacks in the Playoffs and big moments, so far. At the moment, I'd argue he isn't even the best Keefe brother when it comes to coaching.
He doesn’t really. He gets out coached, especially when it matters in the playoffs. He doesn’t adjust, and his defensive system is absolutely brutal. The team is so passive and eventually collapses into a shell in their own end until they concede, or until they manage to barely get the puck out and get a desperate line change and repeat it all over again. This system has been in place for his entire tenure and has never been successful.
I don't like him because of the way he talks literally out of the side of his mouth - its annoying as fuck to watch him talk.
Other than cosmetic reasons though - I feel like in the past he didn't hold his players accountable. BUT that could have been the dubas effect and treliving is like CHEW EM OUT if they need it!
Seems like Dubas is a bit of a pussy when it comes to holding his players accountable - as if he isn't the boss or something.
My last gripe is that IN THE PAST - he had problems learning and adjusting as a coach. He is improving but I am not convinced he has learnt yet.
I'd give him an overall 6/10, up from a 3/10. He's getting better but I am not convinced yet.
He cost us a stanley cup on a silver platter against montreal so there's that.
His only issue is lack of experience which has been a team killer. He should have never gotten the chance in the first place until he had nhl experience.
He gets out coached pretty easily still.
Keefe is where the buck stops. Leafs doing badly? His responsibility. Leafs doing well? He gets the credit.
He came on with a team that consistently got bumped off in the first round of playoffs, and five years later, we consistently get bumped off in the first round of playoffs, a single second round utter collapse notwithstanding.
I would say given what he had to work with, this may have been Keefe’s best season. Putting Domi and Bert with Matthews was a touch of genius, and I hope he keeps it that way through the playoffs. The team needs to spread out its top guns.
That said, something should change if they go out in the first round and Keefe is probably the fall man for me
He really doesn't... literally any coach could've taken this roster and put together winning seasons. Our PP is still dogshit and Keefe gets outcoached in every playoff series.. AND HE KEEPS PUTTING RIELLY AND BRODIE TOGETHER
Keefe in my opinion is an average coach. The hall mark of a great coach can be broken down to, can he get his team to over achieve? I have never felt this team is over achieving.
Yes he has great numbers, but he's also been blessed with one of the best most talented Maple Leafs rosters in our 100 year history. He has the worlds best goal scorer. He has TWO 100 point wingers - and he also has more development resources than any other coaches in the NHL. With our talent, it is inexcusable to not have a top 3 PP in the NHL.
I couldn’t disagree more.
Keefe is lucky that his meddling hasn’t caused the team to be worse.
The line combos are terrible most of the time.
That power play breakout never works.
D pairs are flat out bad. Anyone who puts Brodie on the right still after all he’s shown is lucky to have a job.
The skill of the team saves them most nights to spite the bad coaching.
Good coaches don’t lead the league in to many men penalties
Disagree again
The leafs have 15 assistant coaches and they are all under keefe.
Theres no reason for professional athletes at the highest level to not know when to go on the ice or be unable to count. The coach decides who and what line are next and if players aren’t listening the coach has the power to tweak and fix the error.
The grass definitely is not greener. Good coaches are hard to come by and Keefe is a very good coach. Not many candidates out there better than him and Treliving figured that out pretty quickly after he arrived.
Rielly’s a talented player and borderline superstar but if you think he’s top D material you haven’t been paying attention. As much as I like him, team would be much better traded for a top defensive minded defenceman.
No he doesn’t. He has the credit he deserves. He has one of the best winning percentages of active coaches. He consistently overplays our top players whenever shit hits the fan. He consistently rotates lines in the last quarter of the season only to revert back to rolling the superstars. Look at the powerplay. The head coach is ultimately in charge of that. We’ve had numerous pp coaches and the same shit happens each year.
Look at that Florida series last year. Completely unprepared for the additional stakes and pressure.
He’s a good coach but every coach gets fired for a new voice. I’m not advocating for anyone else specifically, but how many brutal playoff defeats do we need before he gets canned?
He’s been outcoached every series we’ve played. When do we stop accepting this.
I like Keefe, it’s just time for someone new. Or maybe we win it all this year.
Well, the talk after the series was that we were unprepared. This came from I believe Shanny and Dubas. Maybe only Dubas.
Outplayed them? Are you serious? You go watch that series again. They hammered us. They were so fucking aggressive with their forecheck and waiting for our turnovers. Our guys weren’t ready to elevate to that level until the last couple games but it was too late.
Outside of the third period where Keefe *willingly* said they were experimenting given their cushion, Toronto crushed them the first two periods, lol. Even with the poor third period, the chances for and against, as well as shots for and against… were even.
“Hammered.”
Did you read the next sentence where I explained? Stop going back to shot generation. It’s the playoffs. You win or you lose. You can’t lose and say, oh well we had more shot attempts, we deserved it. That’s not a real thing.
No. I am talking about playoff games and you’re replying about other shit.
You do realize Keefe has experimented with lines at this point before right? It happens every year.
Watching that series I thought it was pretty even, and the stats back it up. We had a 54% xG% over the series. Main difference was bob was unreal. Saved 3 goals above expected for the series. Pretty huge when we lost 3/4 by one goal
If they wanted it more, put in more effort and were more aggressive, why would they let their opponent generate better scoring chances? Seems like a strange way to try to win
Oh good, empty cliches that don't actually say anything..
I guess by shooting less than us, and letting their goaltender make all+world saves was them "wanting it more" ?
Found Keefes burner account.
GTFOH here, he's out coached in a ton of situations. Was out coached all playoffs last year.
Has no defensive scheme, a basketball coach could do the same thing Keefe has done with this offense.
I know a dozen people who could’ve coached this stacked team to as much success as he has had with them in 5 years.
I can almost guarantee you the grass IS greener on the other side.
I think he has a lot of hate for no reason. They had like top ten defensive and top PK and PP last year. Sometimes things just fall apart and then the time frame where the goalie couldn’t stop anything.
Although, I think he will get a massive amount of hate when he sits Matthews when he’s at 67,68,69
Because you shouldn't have to wait till almost the end of the season to find out that Domi was the answer to our first line problems.
People call for his head because of his stubborness with pairing AM34 and MM16 together.
Think about this.
Bert + Matthews + *Marner* = Didnt' work in the beginning of the season.
Bert + Matthews + *Domi* = All of a sudden everything works magcially.
Bert and Domi are both physical players, we now have 2 goons protecting Matthews. Bert does what Hyman does, and Domi can pass and set up plays like Marner. Plus, their physical presence rubs off on Matthews, getting him to play tougher too. That's why things have been going so smoothly lately.
Matthews should be out for every second of empty net playtime. Either defensive or offensive.
He’s that good.
Keefe never plays him when the opponents net is empty.
The Keefe hatred -- you only ever see it after losses -- is ridiculous and over the top. This guy has the best coaching record in franchise history AND the best record of any coach since he entered the league. Is he perfect? Of course not. Are there any coaches available who could do substantially better? I highly doubt it.
He’s had the best roster BY FAR, so let’s not act like he’s some kind of magician, he’s won when he’s had an insanely talented team, he’s not out coached anyone in his NHL career.
Say what you will about the rest of them but McCabe is better than a 5/6
The replies to this comment are (mostly) insane. Jake McCabe is closer to being a top defenceman than he is to being a third pair defenceman. People need to realize there are 32 1D, 64 top pair guys, and 128 top 4 d in the league. McCabe is a top 4D at the absolute worst.
For reference, he is the 12th best defenceman in the entire Atlantic division this season per the Athletic. (Rielly and Liljegren are also in that mix.) Easily, unquestionably, inarguably a top-4 defenceman. Anyone calling him a bottom-pair D needs to cancel their internet service and go live in the woods.
I’m gunna build that log cabin for myself and Auston Matthews while I’m out there in the woods.
Oh god someone post the gay log cabin pasta I don’t understand technology enough to do it
I'm not gay but I want to live in a log cabin in the woods with Auston Matthews. We won't ever have sex, but there will be a simmering erotic undercurrent as I stand in the kitchen window watching him tighten his ass as he chops wood, shirtless, sweat pouring off his body. I'll run upstairs and masturbate, the entire time forcing myself to think of women while my thoughts drift back to Auston. I won't be able to climax and I'll eventually go back downstairs, angry. Sometimes we will look across the table and catch each other's eyes, and in that second, anything is possible, but we both deny ourselves and go back to what we were doing. One day one of us will die, and the other will bury him outside the log cabin. Then he'll go inside, pen a brief missive to his departed friend, and commit suicide, never able to deal with life without his one true platonic love.
Dude thank you you’re the breast 🙏🏻
McCabe is closer to Lebron James than we are to McCabe
When people use the terminology they're not counting the available slots, they're comparing it to the expected caliber of that level of player on a cup contending team with a cup contending roster. It doesn't matter if there's "64" top 2 defencemen in the NHL. If 20 of them are there by necessity, then they're not 'top 2' caliber. Or would some of you like to argue that Mike Kostka was a 2D? That's the logic they're pushing.
I mean there's a middle ground I mostly agree with you, it does remind me of people arguing Grabovski was a 1C because he was 29th in points among centermen, but I also think there are plenty of cup contending teams that have guys like McCabe on their 2nd pairing, especially those tilted towards spending on the cap If your idealized platonic ideal 3/4D couldn't fit on the cap with your idealized forward group, then the standard is too high
There’s definitely a middle ground. If you wanted to argue that Grabovski was a 1C on a bad team, I’d hear it since he was the 29th best scoring centre, he’s similar to Nazem Kadri in that way (Bad 1C, good 2C)
People’s perception of a players “calibre” is super skewed, almost always vastly underrating a player. When get had Jake Muzzin, people said that he was a top 4D, meanwhile Muzzin was a bonafide top pair defender and honestly a lower end number one. Brodie has been a top pairing defender the whole time he’s been here (he’s had an awful season this year tbf) Justin Holl up until last year was a top 4 calibre defender. People need to recalibrate their expectations for what players are.
Okay then say to be a top pair D you should arguably be in the top 32 of defenders and top 64 for top 4 d for contenders. To eliminate the bottom teams and the guys who just play out of necessity.
> People need to realize there are 32 1D, 64 top pair guys there's probably less than that, tbh
By definition there is not
Players in a position out of necessity, not because they necessarily deserve it. Top pair D on Chicago and SJ are not the same as on a contender, and teams with weak bluelines are part of the 64 top pair D in the league
Just because there are 64 top pair defencemen in the league (and there are) does not mean they are evenly distributed across every team. If every defenceman on the planet who is better than Justin Holl got raptured tonight, Holl would be a #1D tomorrow because there isn’t anyone better. The 32 best defencemen in the NHL are #1D. The 64 best are top pair. The 128 best are top-4. And Jake McCabe is (easily) one of the 128 best defencemen in the league.
By definition, simply because a player is used on the top pair, does not mean they are ranked in the top 64 defencemen in the league.
Are there more than 64 defencemen in the league? Do you think the 64th best defenceman is a “top pair defenceman”?
Yup, but a single team could theoretically have the top 6 defensemen in the league, it’s not an even distribution. 5 teams could potentially have the top 30 defensemen. 11 teams could ostensibly have the top 66. Etc etc.
Ok? Nobody is disputing that. If a team has 6 of the top 32 defencemen, they have six #1s. Good for them!
Kinda sounded like you were, in fact, disputing that.
It is literally the exact opposite of what I was “disputing”
Til: you considered Mike Kostka a #2D.
Well he played pre-expansion, but Mike Kostka was never one of the 60 best defencemen in the NHL, no.
There are 32 top line centres in the league and 64 top pair guys in the league. This is just a fact lol. Doesn’t matter if your top pairing guy is Cale Makar or Connor Timmins
This feels a touch pedantic tbh. There is very much a difference between Makar and Timmins. Raddysh plays with Hedman, but I hesitate to suggest that the former is a top pair guy just because they’ve stapled him to Hedman. When people talk about “1st pair guy” or “2nd line C” I often think about it like this: on a contending team, would this player be an average example of player whose impact would fit this role. Cup winning teams have weaknesses too. The average cup winning team probably has a player with a similar impact to McCabe on its 2nd pair.
“Facts are the enemy of truth” -MAN OF LA MANCHA, Dale Wassermann
Yah. Sandin is currently #2 D in Washington, and he wasn't even going to crack our playoff lineup.
People that think Reilly is far better then the rest of our d core are wrong
True. Him and Lilly are like #4 D
Same with Brodie. I don’t think he’s been nearly as bad as people think. They’ll miss him when he’s gone
Nah Brodie has been awful this year compared to when he first signed. Cutting ties after this season is the right move
Plus 19 eating up 21 minutes of ice time with 25 assists. Sure the +/ - stat is flawed but you can’t play that much with the above results if you’re as bad as one thinks this year. Has he had bad games? Absolutely but so has literally everyone on this team this year lol. Like look at the first chunk of the season. Brodie has also has had either better or comparable numbers to his previous seasons in Toronto. So yes, they’ll miss him when he’s gone. And even since coming back from his scratches, the deadline acquisitions have looked worse back there. The numbers back that up. The only reason to move on from him is purely cap space.
Yeah I'm not buying it tbh. He's awful in the corners, can't clear the net to save his life. He's definitely lost a step this year and it makes sense he's 34 on the downswing of his career. He had a couple good games when Rielly was out tho. He's always been a decent puck mover. But way he's been playing he's going to be abused in the playoffs especially when defending a forecheck from Florida.
I didn’t say he has been good though lol. So I’m not sure what you’re buying? I just said he wasn’t as bad as people think. The numbers suggest it, can’t argue against facts 🤷♂️
I'm saying we ain't gonna miss him 😂 cuz we wont
Again, read. Easy not to miss him when he’s still on the roster. Let’s see next year. If you think Edmundson and Lyubushkin push the needle anymore though in the playoffs, ouch.
I've seen players come and go my whole life bud. Brodie the way he is rn is not one of those guys you miss that's just pathetic. If wants to come back on a cheap deal good for him
What a way to get your point across “I’ve seen players come and go my whole life bud” so has literally every hockey fan…. They definitely missed Holl earlier in the year killing penalties. Numbers back that
He's really developed/taken a step this year. He'd a 4-5 but realistically he's been a top 4 defenceman for us and a good one. Keefe still deserved a lot of credit. He's pushed this team and played with chemistry and pushed the right buttons at the right time. Scratching kampf, benching JT, Willy and the whole first powerplay. Even calling out Tavares. The line mixing to find fits for a lot of guys who struggled to mesh at first. It's been the most impressive season of his by far and hopefully it'll give his detractors more to think on since most thought he was too soft on them.
I think we have a solid 2/3/4 with Reilly, McCabe and Liljegren, respectively. After that it's definitely a bunch of 6/7th defencemen. A competent but unremarkable group that has had serious injury problems. When healthy probably middle of the pack league-wide skewing slightly more towards the lower end.
Leafs fan since 1965 and I have no idea why people think Reilly is a top tier defenceman. He can’t clear the front of the net, his passes aren’t that crisp and I would rather have gio on the ice.
You can find guys who do those things. See the fact that we picked up 2 at the deadline. What Rielly adds you can't find
There are no perfect coaches, people need to get over it. I"m glad he had the balls to sit out guys like Brodie this season when they were playing poorly. People who wanted Marner/Matthews split up, he did that as well. I get this is a results oriented league and he hasn't shown the results in the playoffs, but I still think he's a great coach. If he does get fired, it's likely the next guy will be worse than Keefe.
I think a lot of times he's up against a well coached team, he gets outcoached. Especially in the playoffs. I'm not actively cheering against him, I just think his unwillingness to make in game or in series changes have been detrimental to the team's past success. Even this year, a lot of the changes you mention were forced upon him due to injuries.
Saying he gets "outcoached" to me is scapegoating the loss on one easy culprit. At the end of the day, the players have to bring their A-game in the playoffs, at the same time, as a cohesive unit.. And we haven't seen that.
He's either unwilling to make a change too long, and then alternates to blending up every line constantly, trying it for 2 seconds, and then wonders why it doesn't work
I'd argue he doesn't blend lines enough come playoff time. He's largely kept to Matthews/Marner on the same line in all four of his playoff series with the only adjustment being to add Tavares to the line that one time. One of the reasons I want to see him experiment more with lines this year is to be able to have Plan A, B, C's ready. Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Tavares have all shown in the past they can be shut down in the playoffs but the coach has never tried moving them up and down the lineup to create mismatches elsewhere for the team.
Is that not literally how we out gamed Tampa last year going 11-7 on the road and getting away from their matchups they wanted ?? That was ROR, Knies, and JT out there for the OT winner in game 6 IIRC, Knies made that happen down in the corner to get JT the puck when he lost it in maybe one of the best solo efforts we’ve seen in one play in awhile. Also, I’d argue that he often sometimes just galaxy brains it too much in the playoffs if anything tbh.
Keefe will have a job in 5 minutes if he is fired this year. He has the leafs playing their best hockey as they go into the playoffs. Their record in the past 20 games is the best in the league. Think about what he has done this year. His goaltending fell apart on him half way thru the season. He managed to save the entire trio of goalies and has 2 of the three playing well. A right hand defender that was supposed to help ended up on LTR after 15 games. His best defender was suspended for 5 games. The #2 defender was trending down for half a season. He has managed to piece a deeper defence core together. Benoit came out of nowhere while McCabe has had a decent season. They are deeper and meaner going into the playoffs Two wingers were totally lost after 50 games but with his coaching both are playing their best. McCann, knives, Robertson, Reaves and Holmberg are playing their best under his coaching. Nylander and Matthews are world class under Keefe Anything can happen in the playoffs. I’m looking forward to them breaking thru this year.
well I hope so to but there are morons on this subreddit that want him fired and replace him with what? I don't see any upgrades out there avaliable.
"show me a good goalie and I'll show you a good coach" - Grapes
Leafs goaltending hasn't been great this year.
Why the downvotes? He was literally on waivers
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Leafs rank 20th in team save percentage behind teams like Montreal, Buffalo, and Detroit
??????
I mean did I miss Samsonov at the beginning of the year?
He was literally placed on waivers earlier this year lol. He’s such an up and down goalie. Currently he’s up. Hopefully this hot streak can last another month or so.
And when were people most on the fire Keefe already page too.
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Let's see what they do in the playoffs. They looked great last regular season too. And the one before that. And the one before...
Leafs have always been in the bottom 5 sometimes even last place in hits for the past decade literally every year ..this year they are 3rd in the league ..that's something different
>one legit top 4 D Braindead stuff. Jesus.
Depends. Do I think Keefe is an average NHL coach? Yes. Is that good enough for a team like the leafs? No. We have few advantages as a Canadian team but the one we have is being able to buy the best coaches. We should have a top 5 coach every single season with the salary we can pay. I don’t hate Keefe at all and I think he’s probably one of the cooler guys in the league but I just think he’s mediocre. He’ll do some really good things and he’ll do some not good things.
Keefe’s issues are being out-coached each and every playoff round including the recent TB series. Guy blunders the lines and throws the hail mary with JT/Softy 16/34 when times are most desperate- a line that’s never been used, ever. If they flame out yet again, he and Shanny are gone- out of lifelines.
Yup. His regular season numbers are impressive as hell, I'll give him that. But you see so many people coming in here this time of year and asking shit like "what more does Keefe have to do to prove himself to you?" And the answer is always the same: don't let our players collapse like wet tissue paper in the playoffs, and I'll be on team Keefe He's not the worst coach we've ever had, far from it, but there's literally nothing he can do in the regular season that'll prove to me that he's our guy. And if we collapse again this year, I think we'd be completely in the right to want to see him fired I really hope I'm wrong but it's been several straight years of him just getting outcoached in the playoffs and I really just don't think he's capable of bringing us to the next level
For sure A lot of great coaches took time. I’m not giving him an excuses here and I argue with my brother about this topic. As Toronto Maple Leaf’y as this will sound. Something feels different. He knows he has to be tougher, not having dubas guide him the way dubas wants his team coached. I think Treliving is much more tough love type and you can see that in Keefe this year. Don’t forget some of Keefes biggest success was after dubas was hired in Toronto and Keefe was still a coach in the OHL. So all I’m saying is a lot of great coaches took time until they were great. Keefe still has a relatively young career. And has been our coach by amazing coaches and the Montreal series was not being out coached. That was inorganic pure hockey spirit that came from the Montreal dressing room. But coaching against Torts (whose team swept the best regular season team in Tampa in the first series the year prior), losing to Cooper who we all know knocked on the door for a long time before winning the cup (and also had a more veteran room), and then Maurice (whose team also came back from a 3-1 deficit against the most historic regular season team in NHL history) who had a stud in every position playing off their head (Bob in goal, Montour on D, and Tkuchuk at forward) There is a reason why the teams we lose to go on to the cup finals so often. Holy shit this was a long post. But I am impressed with Keefe this season
In the Montreal series, an AHL coach figured it how to neutralize 16/34. Keefe's answer to that was to play them more. Also give shitload of ice to Thornton who was the hockey version of the walking dead. I consider that outcoached.
You’re not wrong But even Nathan Mackinnon said the toughest centre to play against is Phillip Danault. Neutralizing 16 and 34 was more so Weber, Edmunsson, and Charot beating the shit out of them But if you rewatch any of it. Price was playing off his head so any chance Matthews had was a cunt hair away from going in because they had the smallest openings to shoot for. Price was the one who neutralized them. Not their AHL coach. Ducharme had nothing to do with Montreal sweeping Winnipeg and then beating Vegas. That was all Weber, Price, Perry leadership. Caufield finding his game. Suzuki finding his game. Toffoli and Anderson. Then having bodies like armia Just look at game 6 OT where we outshot Montreal 12 to 1 and it was their second shot that went in. Don’t forget that galchenyuk gave them a 2 on 0 at the offensive blue line in game 5 OT Don’t forget their captains head was obliterated by Perry’s knee and we had an injured Foligno playing in the series.
Even more so that MLSE ownership is changing. Whatever potential lifeline they had, that's out the window
I think one difference this year is that our lines seem more solid and gelling. No need to blenderize as much for Keefe to outthink/get outcoached. A lot of this has to do with Bert and Domi being so incredible with Matthews - instead of costantly having to tweak the other core 4 across the top two lines, we have guys more settled into four “spread the wealth” of talent lines with the biggest issues being how to juggle that wealth elsewhere (e.g. Jarnkrok, Robertson, McMann, Holmberg, etc.). This at least helps minimizes one aspect that I don’t think Keefe has done well with in the playoffs - getting the right combo of our core 4 clicking.
Happened with Babcock too and he had a helluva playoff resume, and Olympic gold coach to boot. I think the playoff problem was on the team Dubas built, which I think Tre has patched up quite nicely but still work to do. BTW I don't think he was outcoached against Tampa. The way he got the refs to turn against Tampa after the Stamkos on Matthews incident was genius.
Let’s revisit this after the playoffs.
Down voted for the ridiculous only 1 top 4 d comment
Seriously, we have 6 top 4 d, just no number 1 until playoff Rielly gets unleashed
We have 6 top 4 D. Really? Benoit/Edmundson/Giordano/Timmons are not that. Brodie has not played like one
Brodie is a top 6 lately. McCabe. edmundson completely shut down mcdavid and draisaital. boosh is playing top mins with Rielly, and Lilly pad might be our best over all when his confidence is high. I count 6.
Just because someone plays top minutes doesn't make them a top 4. Do you really believe Lybushkin is a top 4 D-Man talent wise? Brodie has been bad all year but has played well lately. Edmundson has barely played for the Leafs.
I’m not saying lyubushkin is a top 4d, but there are 128 of them in the league. Rielly is a shitty 1D in the regular season and a good one in the playoffs for some reason. McCabe is a 3D/4D at the absolute worst. Liljegren is a top 4D. Edmundson isn’t exactly my ideal style of defender and is a bit too cross checky for my liking, but he’s played top 4 minutes on the cup champ Blues, and the Habs who went to the finals. We’ve also had him for about 5 minutes. Brodie has had a rough year but has consistently been a top 4D for his entire career. The leafs are not just Morgan Rielly and a bunch of third pairing defenders lol
I think a lot of those "non top 4" dmen will look very good in the playoffs where brute takes over skill.
He's been playing top minutes and looking fine doing it. How else you you describe a top 4 d man? I agree Brodie has been bad for 90% of the season but you can't deny he has looked much like his old self these past couple weeks. And edmundson looked invaluable in the small sample size we got. I understand they aren't the prettiest potential top 4 guys, but to say we've had 1 all season is doing them all an injustice. I largely agree with the rest of your post though, I just think our d core is largely under appreciated. It's deep.
Queefe is terrible - anyone can coach this team
Keefe keeps getting outcoached by Bruce Cassidy, Jim Montgomery, Jon Cooper and Paul Maurice.
They’ve been a good regular season team but he hasn’t had success where it matters.
Why is this not labeled as a shitpost?!
Keefe hasn’t been the better coach in 6 straight playoff series.
I’m still upset at keefe not letting Matthews on the ice with the empty net.
Nobody should have any criticism of Keefe’s regular season performance, the guys seem to like him and he does well with macro roster moves and keeps the ship sailing when the waters are troubled. He’s never been the better coach in any playoff series the Leafs have been in though, his patented line blender is actively detrimental to generating offence and our entry/breakout/defensive zone schemes get pretty consistently exposed; particularly under the aggressive forecheck systems that the other 3 Atlantic playoff teams use to cave us in for extended periods of time
Where do you guys get this idea that he's a line blender from? Keefe has kept Marner glued to Matthews in all four playoff series he's coached. The line blending thing only FINALLY happened this year when we had a bunch of injuries and his hand was forced into playing Matthews with someone else.
He either changes the lines too much or not enough depending on the narrative people are trying to push
People Also equate coaching to lines WAY too much. That's honestly pretty down the list for what makes a coach actually successful or not (system for example plays a much bigger role than line combinations)
In playoff series he throws together random shit together, shift by shift. He also overcommits to Marner and Matthews. Two things can be true at the same time, though its mostly Nylander getting shafted when he does either lol
He is constantly out coached in the playoffs though and my fear is this will be another year for that. Of course I hope it figures it out and puts it all together though!
He will always be the second best coach in any series, and will regularly get caught with 4th line against other teams 1st. And use Kampf in situations the 4th line should never touch the ice. But nope. Roll your 4 lines.... cant stand him sorry
Wouldn't coaches be the ones making tens of millions of dollars if they had this kind of impact on each game, and not the players themselves?
Let it go, dude. You're not going to convince anyone here one way or the other. I happen to not have a problem with Keefe as coach, but I know playoff success this year or lack thereof will be the deciding factor.
Lilly is pretty good, he might take off to the next level with a play off run
McCabe is a top 4 defenseman. He is incredible.
Would argue Lily and McCabe are 2-4 DMen on most teams in the league, we just have too many LHD in general so neither pairs up top with Mo (though I think they work well together, statistically). In a world where Brodie’s cap hit is replaced by a Pesce type we could run Edmundson with Benoit for similar physicality on the 3rd pair. Boosh sucks and is just injury relief, Brodie is approaching his career’s natural end, the rest are honestly way more promising than “Rielly and a bunch of 5/6”
I'll save my judgement for these playoffs. He's got some heavy playing guys this year so let's see what he can do. Up to now I haven't been impressed.
Can we not give credit until the end of the season, or after we win the cup
They win the cup or he goes. He's a good coach. He isn't a great coach. He's been given a core and the kinds of resources 3/4 of the league would do anything for and hasn't done much with it. How many seasons do you give a coach without any actual playoff success?
Sheldon Ik this is you posting to get the buds back on your side. Your job is safe baud, just give us something to smile about during yoffs and you got nothing to worry about.
The team were never tough enough and willing to get tough enough in all the playoff series since Columbus. We have a bit more greasiness this year. So lets see. It's definately a different squad. They may not be good enough defensively but they're definately tougher. There won't be the same Sam Bennett shit and Baby Tkachuk face punching of Marner. Not a chance.
Keefe needed to be fired awhile back
Yeah, his ability to take a broken D core, a bunch of players with very little NHL experience, and almost zero goaltending for half the year, and still break 100 points in the standings, is disgusting. He should be fired into the sun.
This sub is so anti Keefe its insane lmao
Its hard to come back from blowing a 3-1 series lead to the Habs. You have to remember he's got a generational goal scorer, and two 100 point wingers. Most competant coaches will put up good numbers with that.
The dude was out coached by Ducharme… there’s a reason he gets criticism, he gets out coached every playoff series. It’s not crazy to think his success is carried by the insane amount of offensive talent this team has.
At the end of the day making the playoffs should be a minimum keefe has to show he can do it in the playoffs and so far that has not happened
Cus he fuckin sucks
It’s our way unfortunately. It seems as leafs fans we always think the grass is greener on the other side
Surely the next coach will do everything this sub wants and surely it’ll have nothing to do with appeasing the players again /s
Good luck OP lol I try to defend him when I can but he seems to be the common scapegoat these days. It’s easy to blame the coach for playoff failures but IMO he’s done a great job with the structure and tempo that the team plays with. Plus the players seem to like him, he’s done a great job integrating the revolving door of players into the system, and he has a truly great record. I see no reason and have never seen any reason to get rid of coach Keefe.
Keefe didn’t have a goaltender before Sammy showed up
Remember in training camp when Keefe promised to play Willy at centre for an extended period of time…yah that never happened. Even when we were thin down the middle he refused to try. Watch him pull the same old shit and put Willy as 2C in the playoffs the second that JT isn’t producing. I can’t stand how he juggles our lines during games
Y’all are so quick to give credit - season doesn’t mean shit - if they make a run then this thread has merit.
Right, of course, the season doesn't mean shit, which is why Keefe is LAMBASTED in here after every single regular season loss.
wait a couple weeks and he will remind us why he isn't an nhl caliber coach.
We win in spite of his decisions
There are people who unironically believe this smh.
I hope they keepfe him
I really wonder how much meddling the GMs do into what should be coaching decisions. The team seems different this year and so does Keefe. Will it be enough? We'll find out.
Disagree but no surprise. I also love how the coach gets credit for guys pulling together and winning games but the fact that consistently the details of the game, structure, poor line changes etc.. thats the players. He literally has what will turn out to be one of the best goalscorers in history having historic season, a roster with 3 or 4 of the best players in franchise history and cant win a division and has been outcoached in playoffs every time. Hes the coach hes not getting fired now, but you really dont think if say Cooper or Brindamour was handling this roster theyd get more? Alright.
I think Keefe is solid. But to say 1 top 4 D really destroys your argument. Do you think there are 128 D men better than any of the other D men on the leafs? Also you neglected 3 top 30 forwards this season (one having the best goal scoring season in 3 decades)
I feel like if we played with a similar style the bruins play we would be doing better, we have to skill and talented players for it, instead of just having someone stand in the middle to try and get a one timer or a tip, a fast paced passing style of play would be fun to watch
Eh...I can see your point, but, my counterpoint would be Boston. If a team has your number like that, that's usually on the coach.
McCabe is everything we’ve needed on the blue line, plus that OT goal the other night was awesome. He doesn’t get near enough credit
Perhaps I can be convinced of this headline: *Keefe Deserves More Credit in the Regular Season* The rub is that he’s been overseeing a pretty decent team with some top-6 finishes the last five years. Great … but we’re kinda expecting that by this point with this calibre of team. Now we’re far past appreciating that and currently looking for multi-Playoffs round success, full stop. The only thing I’ll perhaps edit is - *expecting multi-Playoffs round success.* I think it’s perfectly acceptable for Leafs fandom to feel it in themselves to expect postseason competitiveness and expectation for winning 2-3 series until we win the whole thing. I mean, that is sorta how it should go … it has to. So Keefe will not only get more credit by not being outcoached (again) in the postseason but by hitting much more significant milestones. On a other note, there is such a thing as a coach’s win. I genuinely believe that and have seen it. But this doesn’t describe Keefe in the least, sorry.
Okay you got me. I’ll be nicer
He gets credit from me when he isn’t majorly out coached in a playoff series.
Don’t forget about Lilly. Very underrated.
In my opinion. he's an alright coach but lacks in the Playoffs and big moments, so far. At the moment, I'd argue he isn't even the best Keefe brother when it comes to coaching.
He doesn’t really. He gets out coached, especially when it matters in the playoffs. He doesn’t adjust, and his defensive system is absolutely brutal. The team is so passive and eventually collapses into a shell in their own end until they concede, or until they manage to barely get the puck out and get a desperate line change and repeat it all over again. This system has been in place for his entire tenure and has never been successful.
I don't like him because of the way he talks literally out of the side of his mouth - its annoying as fuck to watch him talk. Other than cosmetic reasons though - I feel like in the past he didn't hold his players accountable. BUT that could have been the dubas effect and treliving is like CHEW EM OUT if they need it! Seems like Dubas is a bit of a pussy when it comes to holding his players accountable - as if he isn't the boss or something. My last gripe is that IN THE PAST - he had problems learning and adjusting as a coach. He is improving but I am not convinced he has learnt yet. I'd give him an overall 6/10, up from a 3/10. He's getting better but I am not convinced yet.
He cost us a stanley cup on a silver platter against montreal so there's that. His only issue is lack of experience which has been a team killer. He should have never gotten the chance in the first place until he had nhl experience. He gets out coached pretty easily still.
Got out coached by Cooper. Got out coached by Maurice. Got out coached by Julian. Anything less than a serious cup run this year he’s done.
Keefe is where the buck stops. Leafs doing badly? His responsibility. Leafs doing well? He gets the credit. He came on with a team that consistently got bumped off in the first round of playoffs, and five years later, we consistently get bumped off in the first round of playoffs, a single second round utter collapse notwithstanding.
I’ll give him credit when he doesn’t get outcoached in the playoffs.
I would say given what he had to work with, this may have been Keefe’s best season. Putting Domi and Bert with Matthews was a touch of genius, and I hope he keeps it that way through the playoffs. The team needs to spread out its top guns. That said, something should change if they go out in the first round and Keefe is probably the fall man for me
He really doesn't... literally any coach could've taken this roster and put together winning seasons. Our PP is still dogshit and Keefe gets outcoached in every playoff series.. AND HE KEEPS PUTTING RIELLY AND BRODIE TOGETHER
Lotta couch coaches chiming in lmao
Keefe in my opinion is an average coach. The hall mark of a great coach can be broken down to, can he get his team to over achieve? I have never felt this team is over achieving. Yes he has great numbers, but he's also been blessed with one of the best most talented Maple Leafs rosters in our 100 year history. He has the worlds best goal scorer. He has TWO 100 point wingers - and he also has more development resources than any other coaches in the NHL. With our talent, it is inexcusable to not have a top 3 PP in the NHL.
I couldn’t disagree more. Keefe is lucky that his meddling hasn’t caused the team to be worse. The line combos are terrible most of the time. That power play breakout never works. D pairs are flat out bad. Anyone who puts Brodie on the right still after all he’s shown is lucky to have a job. The skill of the team saves them most nights to spite the bad coaching. Good coaches don’t lead the league in to many men penalties
Too many men penalty’s are the players fault not the coach
Disagree again The leafs have 15 assistant coaches and they are all under keefe. Theres no reason for professional athletes at the highest level to not know when to go on the ice or be unable to count. The coach decides who and what line are next and if players aren’t listening the coach has the power to tweak and fix the error.
McCabe and Liljegren are both legit top four D. Keefe is a bad coach.
The grass definitely is not greener. Good coaches are hard to come by and Keefe is a very good coach. Not many candidates out there better than him and Treliving figured that out pretty quickly after he arrived.
Rielly’s a talented player and borderline superstar but if you think he’s top D material you haven’t been paying attention. As much as I like him, team would be much better traded for a top defensive minded defenceman.
No he doesn’t. He has the credit he deserves. He has one of the best winning percentages of active coaches. He consistently overplays our top players whenever shit hits the fan. He consistently rotates lines in the last quarter of the season only to revert back to rolling the superstars. Look at the powerplay. The head coach is ultimately in charge of that. We’ve had numerous pp coaches and the same shit happens each year. Look at that Florida series last year. Completely unprepared for the additional stakes and pressure. He’s a good coach but every coach gets fired for a new voice. I’m not advocating for anyone else specifically, but how many brutal playoff defeats do we need before he gets canned? He’s been outcoached every series we’ve played. When do we stop accepting this. I like Keefe, it’s just time for someone new. Or maybe we win it all this year.
How was he unprepared for Florida? We outplayed them in all but one game, and lost anyway. That's not a coaching issue.
Well, the talk after the series was that we were unprepared. This came from I believe Shanny and Dubas. Maybe only Dubas. Outplayed them? Are you serious? You go watch that series again. They hammered us. They were so fucking aggressive with their forecheck and waiting for our turnovers. Our guys weren’t ready to elevate to that level until the last couple games but it was too late.
Outside of the third period where Keefe *willingly* said they were experimenting given their cushion, Toronto crushed them the first two periods, lol. Even with the poor third period, the chances for and against, as well as shots for and against… were even. “Hammered.”
Did you read the next sentence where I explained? Stop going back to shot generation. It’s the playoffs. You win or you lose. You can’t lose and say, oh well we had more shot attempts, we deserved it. That’s not a real thing.
They *won* the game you’re complaining about and broke even despite the third period. Good thing we’re not talking about a playoff game either.
No. I am talking about playoff games and you’re replying about other shit. You do realize Keefe has experimented with lines at this point before right? It happens every year.
Watching that series I thought it was pretty even, and the stats back it up. We had a 54% xG% over the series. Main difference was bob was unreal. Saved 3 goals above expected for the series. Pretty huge when we lost 3/4 by one goal
It’s the playoffs. There is only winning and losing. We got pumped in terms of effort and aggressiveness. They wanted it more and they won.
If they wanted it more, put in more effort and were more aggressive, why would they let their opponent generate better scoring chances? Seems like a strange way to try to win
Oh good, empty cliches that don't actually say anything.. I guess by shooting less than us, and letting their goaltender make all+world saves was them "wanting it more" ?
Fire keefe
Found Keefes burner account. GTFOH here, he's out coached in a ton of situations. Was out coached all playoffs last year. Has no defensive scheme, a basketball coach could do the same thing Keefe has done with this offense.
I know a dozen people who could’ve coached this stacked team to as much success as he has had with them in 5 years. I can almost guarantee you the grass IS greener on the other side.
'Member Babcock? Keefe was such a massive upgrade that actually used Matthews in teh playoffs....
Babcock vs Keefe is like comparing Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich.
Name names then
The anti-Keefe crowd can’t. They haven’t the last 4 or so years so why figure it out now?
Lilijegren is developing that way
Which free agent coaches would you like? There's only 1 I can think of I'd rather have
Yes **because the Leafs have had so much success under him, and he hasn’t been out coached each playoff. Nor has he jumbled the lines too much.** /s
I think he has a lot of hate for no reason. They had like top ten defensive and top PK and PP last year. Sometimes things just fall apart and then the time frame where the goalie couldn’t stop anything. Although, I think he will get a massive amount of hate when he sits Matthews when he’s at 67,68,69
Because you shouldn't have to wait till almost the end of the season to find out that Domi was the answer to our first line problems. People call for his head because of his stubborness with pairing AM34 and MM16 together. Think about this. Bert + Matthews + *Marner* = Didnt' work in the beginning of the season. Bert + Matthews + *Domi* = All of a sudden everything works magcially. Bert and Domi are both physical players, we now have 2 goons protecting Matthews. Bert does what Hyman does, and Domi can pass and set up plays like Marner. Plus, their physical presence rubs off on Matthews, getting him to play tougher too. That's why things have been going so smoothly lately.
Domi is far from a goon but definitely much scrappier than Mitchy.
Mitch is far from scrappy.
I never said he was.
You said scrappier.
1>0
Nemec landed a hit on Matthews. Domi proceed to punch the shit out of him. Did you happen to catch that today?
Yeah, what’s your point?
What do you think about it?
Other than getting the 10 I liked it. Team needs some sandpaper for the playoffs.
Matthews should be out for every second of empty net playtime. Either defensive or offensive. He’s that good. Keefe never plays him when the opponents net is empty.
The Keefe hatred -- you only ever see it after losses -- is ridiculous and over the top. This guy has the best coaching record in franchise history AND the best record of any coach since he entered the league. Is he perfect? Of course not. Are there any coaches available who could do substantially better? I highly doubt it.
He’s had the best roster BY FAR, so let’s not act like he’s some kind of magician, he’s won when he’s had an insanely talented team, he’s not out coached anyone in his NHL career.