Change Needed: Toronto Maple Leafs Had to Can Unpopular Coach

The Toronto Maple Leafs won Thursday night and it felt so good.

But not just because the Toronto Maple Leafs won. It was the way they won. Tyson Barrie scored his first of the year, Pierre Engvall scored a shorthanded goal for his first ever, and Auston Matthews potted one in his hometown.

And for what was more than likely the first time all season, the team showed up and played a full 60 minutes.

So the question is why? Why did the team all of a sudden decide to show up after putting up sub-par efforts all season and dropping six games in a row?

One word. Coaching.

Toronto Maple Leafs New Coach

On the afternoon of November 20th, the day after dropping the game against the Vegas Golden Knights for their sixth loss in a row, the Leafs announced they fired head coach Mike Babcock and hired Toronto Marlies coach Sheldon Keefe to take his place. Just over 24 hours later, Keefe had his first win under his belt.

I wrote an article about a month ago or so on why the Leafs had to fire Babcock. In the article, I touched on the fact that despite my feelings towards him, Babcock has a top-notch resume that you can never take away from him, regardless of how he did with the Leafs.

With a Stanley Cup under his belt as well as two Olympic gold medals and 700 wins to his name, he’s obviously a good coach.

And honestly, I wouldn’t have taken anybody else over Babs in the 2015-16 season. Just look at Nazem Kadri for example. After years of being thrown in the doghouses of Ron Wilson and Randy Carlyle, Babcock actually sat down with Kadri and helped him work on his defensive game and overall confidence. And look what happened? He turned into a 30 goal scorer.

Babcock has an outstanding pedigree that nobody can discredit. There’s a reason he’s been coaching in the NHL since the early 2000s and will likely be one of the first to answer the phone when teams come calling for a bench boss. But the fact of the matter is, his time was up with the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Coming into his fourth season coaching the team, fans obviously started to pick up some of his “tendencies”. His “tie goes to the veteran” mentality (unless you’re Jason Spezza), the fact that he always starts the backup goalie on the second half of the back to back, the fact that the fourth line is always on the ice after a goal, whether it be a goal scored or goal allowed.

These tendencies can obviously get annoying, but the Leafs have the talent to make up for it and thus, they were easy to look past. Until this season, that is.

In my previous article, the main point I was trying to get across was that the team did not appear to want to play for Babcock anymore.

None of the stars looked engaged. The only people who showed up and played their hearts out day in and day out were guys who didn’t want to be sent down or traded, as well as newcomers. If you’re locked in and know you have a spot on the team for years to come? You’re laughing.

And now that Babcock is gone, it seems as though the players are starting to show their true feelings for him. Or rather just how much they respect Sheldon Keefe as a coach.

And look what happened last night? They showed up and they were engaged from start to finish. John Tavares gave the game puck to Keefe after the game.

There were smiles up and down the bench, from the players and the coaches. They actually looked like the team we expected to see at the start of the season.

I saw a lot of people calling the firing “risky”. Saying that a team in Toronto’s shoes would be better off sticking with the coaching veteran who knows what it takes to win rather than dropping him and hiring a guy like Keefe with no NHL experience.

That’s fair, but where do you think all of these veteran coaches started? They didn’t just appear out of nowhere with 30 years of experience under their belts.

Some of the most well-respected coaches in the league such as Barry Trotz, Jon Cooper, Peter Laviolette, and even Mike Babcock all coached in the AHL before making it to the show. You have to start somewhere.

And for not having coached in the NHL before last night, Keefe has one hell of a resume. He purchased the Pembroke Lumber Kings of the CCHL, a Junior A league, and led them to five straight championships.

He coached the OHL’s Sault St. Marie Greyhounds to multiple winning seasons. He led the Toronto Marlies to a Calder Cup in 2018. The man simply wins wherever he coaches.

The biggest difference you’re going to see between Babcock’s Leafs and Keefe’s Toronto Maple Leafs is the way they play.

One thing Keefe has preached over and over is that he’s going to let the team play to their strengths. And that right there is something Babcock was never able to do. His biggest problem towards the end of his tenure in Toronto was the fact that he expected his team to adapt to him instead of him adapting to the team.

The Toronto Maple Leafs team that Kyle Dubas built is not one that’s built for physical, defensive, grindy hockey. This team is one that will succeed through skill and offense, and the team now gets to play to their full potential under Sheldon Keefe.

That, and they now have a coach that they would run through the boards for. Which is key to having a successful hockey team.

And before anybody says “oh look at this guy predicting a Stanley Cup after one game” that’s not what I’m doing at all.

There’s no doubt in my mind that there will be several instances this year where the team forgets to show up and won’t play to their full potential.

But having said that, this team is going to be playing a different style of hockey from now on that will be much more enjoyable to watch.

Hell, just ask Tyson Barrie.