Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe calls to his players during the third period of Game 2 against the Boston Bruins, on April 22, in Boston.Charles Krupa/The Associated Press
Ahead of the most pivotal game of his career, Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe did something out of character on Friday. He made a joke.
Keefe often gets teed up in ways that beg a little humour. He doesn’t take those chances. Keefe is a serious person doing serious work in an outfit that takes itself more seriously than a moon mission.
But now, near what could be the end, he has begun to forget himself.
Someone tossed him one of those rhetorical meatballs – are you going to stick with the (1-for-18) power play in Game 7 of the first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins?
“Stick with it? As opposed to not sticking with it?” Keefe said, allowing a little comic pause to build up. “No, we’re not going to decline the power play.”
Ba-doom-boom.
Where was this guy the past five years? People might’ve grown attached to him.
Traditionally, Leafs fans prefer their coaches bigger than the players. Because the team is never very interesting, it gives you someone to root for or against or sometimes both at the same time.
The best of them never allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by the city’s perpetual anxiety. Instead, they have redirected it – at opponents, at the media, at themselves.
Show you care, be belligerent when necessary, have a sense of humour and win a few. Those are the four habits of a highly effective Leafs coach. It’s not since Pat Quinn (1998-2006) that anyone’s had them all. Keefe has none.
Mostly you are struck by his reticence, which has begun to seem like painful shyness. He talks all the time, but never seems to enjoy it. He spends most of his time monologuing while staring at a point five feet in front of him. That sort of reserve makes it hard to show you care.
He’s not a screamer – more of a slow boiler. You get the feeling he takes his disappointments home.
As noted, he has no evident sense of humour. And he’s turned five seasons with a win-right-now team into one playoff-round victory. That’s a tough sell when it comes to the yearly performance review.
On Friday, Leafs defenceman Morgan Rielly analogized Saturday’s Game 7 to existence: “If we win, we’re alive. If we lose, we’re dead.”
Except, not him. He doesn’t die in any sense of that word. Nor do the most famous of his teammates. Or the guy who sharpens the skates. They all get to hang out at home for a few months and then do it again for the same amount of money.
The only person in the Leafs organization in existential danger is Keefe. If the Leafs lose on Saturday, it is difficult to see how he survives.
Five years is longer than the natural lifespan of an unsuccessful coach. If it’s another first-round duck, someone has to go. Kyle Dubas did the Leafs the favour last year of begging to be fired. This year, it won’t be that simple.
So Saturday night may be the last ride of Sheldon Keefe, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach.
With that in mind on Friday, he did another thing he doesn’t usually do – take credit.
Someone invited him to go in on Mitch Marner, who has been invisible again. A long answer about Marner’s challenges and qualities led to this superlative: “Mitch hasn’t changed the structure for one second.”
That isn’t Keefe congratulating Marner. That’s Keefe congratulating Keefe. Absent Auston Matthews, the team has finally started deploying the high-energy defensive system he wants them to play – even Marner.
Keefe did it again a few minutes later while talking about a second AWOL offensive force, John Tavares: “Another guy who has not cheated the system.”
The Leafs haven’t looked like the Leafs in their past two games. They’ve looked like the Bruins.
“Tired” is how Tyler Bertuzzi described feeling after winning Game 6. And he looks it – hollowed out. That’s the look of winning hockey.
Is this the team Keefe imagined all along? Has circumstance – the absence through injury of William Nylander, and then Matthews, and the usual early vacation by Marner – finally made his vision possible?
The Leafs were never going to play this style in the regular season. Too hard – on their bodies, as well as their numbers. The problem with the playoff Leafs is that they look exactly like the regular-season Leafs, except all the space has disappeared and everyone’s trying to kill you for real.
Could it be that after five years of circular talk about getting better, it’s all going to come down to these two weeks to get proof of concept? Are we really saying that all Toronto needed was for everyone to get so desperate they finally decided to do what the coach has been asking them to do the whole time?
Any other team, the idea would be too ridiculous to credit. But with the Leafs …
Right now, Keefe is a genius hiding in plain view. But only if he wins.
If he loses on Saturday, he’s back to being the guy who could not convince his knuckleheads to try every night. Because that’s his only job, he’ll have failed at it.
It’s not often you see a career in the balance like this – one game deciding which side it comes down on.
If this is it, Keefe has at least proved one thing – that it’s not his fault.
He is to blame because that’s the purpose of a head coach – to be blamed.
But there was a plan. You don’t need to be a tactical expert to understand how it works. Everyone tries and nobody stops, and you do that for the whole 60 minutes.
Over the past two games, we’ve all seen this miracle happen. Which is no guarantee it will happen again.
But if it goes the wrong way on Saturday and he is bound for other things, you can say of Keefe that while he may not have been the coach for the Leafs, he has proved he is the coach for someone.