Toronto Maple Leafs: Sheldon Keefe Staying with Marlies

The Toronto Maple Leafs may have a vacancy on their NHL bench, but it appears as if Sheldon Keefe will not be the one to fill it. For now.

After months of speculation around whether or not he would be elevated into an assistant’s role with the Maple Leafs, Sheldon Keefe is now officially staying with the Toronto Marlies after news of a two-year contract extension was announced during the Marlies’ end-of-season media availability this morning that he will remain as head coach.

It’s a relatively unsurprising development for the veteran bench boss.

Keefe has never held the position of assistant coach throughout the entirety of his career, only briefly serving as an unofficial “assistant” for the Pembroke Lumber Kings under then-Head Coach and General Manager, Kevin Abrams, back in 2005. Keefe would then take over the head coaching duties two years later upon Abrams’ promotion to CCHL Commissioner. He never looked back.

Since being hired to his current position in 2015, Keefe has now compiled a four-year tenure of success at the AHL level that is near-unprecedented in its scope. Throughout 296 total games behind Toronto’s bench, the Keefe-led Marlies have amassed gaudy totals of 188 regular season wins and 403 regular season points, along with two Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophies, one Eastern Conference Championship, and one Calder Cup.

Moreover, Keefe’s Marlies teams have never failed to reach, at minimum, the second round of the Calder Cup Playoffs at any point under his leadership. Their recently-concluded 2019 series versus the Charlotte Checkers signalled the third time in Keefe’s four years aboard that his team has participated in the Eastern Conference Final.

Of course, there is also the matter of player development when it comes to an AHL head coach.

In this past season alone, twelve members of the Maple Leafs’ 23-man roster had played for Keefe’s Marlies at some point in their careers, with seven having served as key factors in the Marlies’ Calder Cup Championship in 2018. That level of both internal consistency and immediate results is almost never contained within one organization.

When it comes to the likes of Andreas Johnsson, Kasperi Kapanen, Travis Dermott, Trevor Moore, Zach Hyman, and William Nylander, as well, Keefe has overseen each respective player’s development path from the moment it began at the professional level to the moment they were promoted to the Maple Leafs. He’s been the guiding hand for practically every component of the organization’s NHL future not named Auston Matthews or Mitch Marner.

And, after today, the man responsible for that guidance is confirmed to be sticking around.

At least, for the time being.

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