Keefe isn't meek at all. The guy gets pissed at his players, but also respects them. He is also composed enough to keep it behind closed doors most of the time... Which is good and extremely hard to do in a market like ours.
It is a tough balance for a coach because the guy needs to be able to trust his players, and especially his top players and leaders. Every coach does. Our top players and leaders have let us down at times, especially in the playoffs, but also are the ones who are often leading this team to victory as well. They mostly need to just figure out how to be less bipolar. But given their age, he (and Dubas) are trusting them to figure it out. And really, it is on them to figure it out. I doubt they are letting them off the hook, but it is not like they can hold their hands either or they will solve anything by putting unnecessary pressure on them. I am sure Keefe/Dubas realize that they get plenty of that from fans, media, and themselves as it is.
The more fringe guys are consistently held accountable. They are just a lot more rational about it than fans are. They don't want to shoot a player to the moon after one bad game. But he's healthy scratched struggling players... And they've come back performing better. Hasn't done it with the core players as much, but then again, our struggling core players are still better than most other guys on the team...
Gallant has had highs, but also some very low lows which have led him to being fired on 3 separate occasions. Saying he is a guarantee is no different than saying Babcock was a guarantee. It is not like inexperience as an NHL head coach works against you either. Bednar was in his 6th year of his first NHL HC gig (or NHL gig in general) when he won with Colorado. Berube in STL had a brief 1.5 season stint with Philly and mostly being an NHL assistant. Took them from the basement to a Cup after coming in mid-season. Cooper was with Tampa for a while before he won but he is still in his first NHL coaching gig. No prior NHL experience and only 2.5 years of AHL experience too. Mike Sullivan was a HC for Boston for 2 years a decade before getting hired as PIT's HC mid-season, taking them from the basement to winning B2B Cups. Quite frankly, Trotz is the only "experienced" HC to win a Cup since Quenneville in 2015. That is 6 of the last 7 Cups won by "inexperienced" NHL HC's.
Sometimes it takes time, and last year was the first time Keefe ran a proper NHL training camp as an NHL HC. He has been an NHL HC for 3.5 years and people were calling for his head after the MTL loss. Not everything is necessarily perfect with him, but I have seen Cooper and Sullivan make plenty of coaching gaffs too and both won B2B Cups. This isn't a team that needs a new voice in the locker room. If there is a seismic shift on this team, the core is next in the firing line.
