Sheldon Keefe watches play during the third period in Game 1 of the team's NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins, on April 20.Michael Dwyer/The Associated Press
In a nice touch, the Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t fire head coach Sheldon Keefe on Thursday. Per the team’s release, they “relieved” him of his duties. What a great word.
For five years, Keefe tried to get his luxury island of misfit toys to understand the difference between regular-season effort and playoff effort. The players stonewalled him that entire time.
Then, right at the end, when all hope was lost, they decided to listen. And it worked. It worked right up until all the big guys he’d been hired to get through to took a group nap on the ice during overtime in a Game 7.
After that, Keefe must have been begging to feel the cold hand of professional death.
He went through the motions of pretending to want to stay, because no other team wants to hire a quitter. But the fight in him was gone.
“Today’s decision was difficult,” GM Brad Treliving said in the release.
No, it wasn’t. Keeping him – that would have been difficult. That would have been the equivalent of putting a chair against the door and daring the city to come and get you. Firing him was the easy choice, and the merciful one.
Keefe joins a long list of men who’ve landed The Greatest Job in Hockey™ and come out the other end in small chunks. Mike Babcock, Mike Murphy, Peter Horachek, Ron Wilson, Doug Carpenter, Dan Maloney and so on and so forth. They’re all brave, but no one survives the reputational wood chipper that is Toronto.
So who’s up next?
The general rule in hockey is a bully, followed by a buddy.
Remember when Keefe first arrived and seemed happy in his work? Excited to learn about everyone and bring out the best in them? Yeah, that didn’t last long.
By the end, Keefe’s default was a deflated mumble and none of his buddies in the locker room bothered to say a meaningful word in his defence. So much for the special bond of the locker room.
So it’ll be a bully.
Another rule is a safe choice follows a risk. Because he’d never coached in the NHL before, Keefe was the hipster’s pick. That went about as well as it ever does.
Every Leafs coach you could reasonably describe as great died before the Internet was a thing, but there once was a tradition of hiring cards. Guys who enjoyed the back and forth, or could tell a story. Someone who could relieve his players of the burden of carrying the news cycle.
Keefe wasn’t that guy, nor was Mike Babcock before him, or the last few guys before that. As the Leafs have become more and more corporate, their coaches reflect that.
In Toronto, you’ve got two choices – you can win or you can be amusing. Because winning’s off the table, you’ve really only got one choice.
If you had to design the perfect next Leafs coach, he would be someone the fans know. Someone who has a bigger personality than his players. Someone with charisma. Maybe a vicious streak. Someone who knows how to play old-school mind games. Someone you’d like to have a beer with.
I think I’ve got it – nobody.
Nobody can do those things in Toronto any more, because no one has in 20 years. If they could, they would.
You look down the list of bookies’ picks and it is more of the same – Craig Berube, Bruce Boudreau, Gerard Gallant, Todd McLellan, et al.
All fine people, I’m sure. All unemployed for a reason. Not an original idea among them. Company men. Absolutely perfect for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment.
Once you’ve been a head coach in the NHL, the only way you can be removed from the rumour mill is to die first. It’s the same people bringing the same energy with the same results.
There are no more Scotty Bowmans. Tampa’s Jon Cooper is the closest thing, and why would he leave the sweet life in Florida to work for a basket case like MLSE?
Picking from the dozen or so men available on the coaching carousel at any given time hasn’t worked in 50 years. So, yeah, why not try it again? I’m sure the 26th time will be the charm.
If the Leafs really wanted change – which they absolutely do not – they’d get rid of the box. Maybe the same old Canadians and Americans we all know from turgid panels on Sportsnet or ESPN are not the answer. Surely, there is a coach in Europe who might bring something vaguely new to the mix. Anything would be better than this.
A visionary outfit might risk more than that. When England’s Southampton Football Club made it back to the Premiership, it accepted it was outclassed and outgunned. The usual way of doing things was not going to help it.
In search of new ideas, it hired a hockey coach, Ralph Krueger, as director. That began the most successful period in the club’s modern history. For just a moment there, Southampton was the most ahead-of-the-curve sports franchise in the world.
Would the Leafs try something like that? Of course not. That sounds too much like fun. The arena’s full. The fans aren’t picky. Why bother?
Better to go with the guys everyone knows already. World-weary types who think they’ve seen everything.
After 12 months in the paint shaker that is Toronto, they have either gone frothing mad or stopped talking altogether.
It’s not a hockey job. It’s a crucible. You’re not here to win. You’re here to suffer. It would take a very special person to break that cycle. A type we don’t see in the NHL.
And that’s the real problem with picking a Leafs coach from the usual suspects – wanting the job should disqualify you from getting it.