Is Keefe the right coach for this team at this time.

[ACC1224]

He had weeks to prepare a game plan for a team that everybody knew exactly what they were going to do.
He had a mini camp to get the team ready to execute that game plan.
He had a basically healthy roster to deploy.

And his team laid an egg in games 1, 4 (aside from getting lucky in a one in a million fluke), and 5 and choked up a 3 goal lead in game 3.

He did not coach the series really well.....CBJ did exactly what everyone knew they were going to and the Leafs had no answer. That is not coaching "really well"

Some people have very low standards.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

He had weeks to prepare a game plan for a team that everybody knew exactly what they were going to do.
He had a mini camp to get the team ready to execute that game plan.
He had a basically healthy roster to deploy.

And his team laid an egg in games 1, 4 (aside from getting lucky in a one in a million fluke), and 5 and choked up a 3 goal lead in game 3.

He did not coach the series really well.....CBJ did exactly what everyone knew they were going to and the Leafs had no answer. That is not coaching "really well"

Lol. When the Leafs come back from a 3 goal deficit, they just got lucky and it's a 1 in a million fluke. When CBJ came back, it's because the Leafs choked. Do you not see your ridiculous biased slant?

 

[member 300185]

This isn't a torts thing but Keefe had 2 tough guys on his team. Muzzin was one, Clifford the other. He gave one of 2 tough guys 4th line minutes when Clifford should have been on the 3rd line creating havoc. Its what he does. Keefe mismanaged the roster all over the place. Argue or not, Keefe is a rookie coach making rookie mistakes and yes, Torts did outcoach him whether you believe it or not. If you dont agree, ask yourself who won that series? And then ask yourself who had the better roster? The leafs did by a lot. Torts got his team going, Keefe did not and lost the series. Enough of this hot goalie nonsense. That is an excuse why they lost, not the reason they lost. A whole team full of scorers couldn't score? Come on.

 

[Ziggdiezan]

No problem.

In terms of possession, the trio had possession nearly 70% of the time they were on the ice.

In terms of scoring chances for and against differential, they were over 60%(very good)

In terms of high danger scoring chances for and against differential, they were over 70%(which is incredible)

Essentially Columbus barely got anything against the Leafs when that trio was out, but the trio was very dangerous, as shown in the illustrations below.

These charts not only show their shot location, but also the quality of the shots/chance through xga etc. The reality is, Columbus got some really lucky breaks against that line, which is the truth.

View attachment 377884

View attachment 377885

View attachment 377886

What site are those shot graphs from? Haven't seen them before, I.e. shot maps for individual players in certain games.

Curious what the zone deployment of that line was and how the rest of the team performed as from the first figure it looks like the rest of the leafs forwards did badly. If the rest of the team performed poorly as the top line had the vast majority of offensive talent it wouldn't be worth stacking the line even if they dominated (albeit without scoring)

 

[Martin Skoula]

That's something you do when your desperate for a goal, much like pulling the goalie but you don't do that for the whole game because it screws with the rest of the lineup and you get nothing out of them

Robertson scored the only goal by a non-top6 forward all series lol, what exactly are we screwing with?

 

[LeafGrief]

Yea, I suppose you guys are right.

Idk what that pic is supposed to argue. I literally agreed with you that Torts was a good coach. Torts is a good coach regardless of the fact that he won a cup. Dan Bylsma is a bad coach regardless of the fact that he won a cup. Kyle Dubas and Sheldon Keefe winning the Calder Cup as GM is almost entirely irrelevant to their respective merits for NHL positions.

 

[KyleDubasBoyGeniua]

This isn't a torts thing but Keefe had 2 tough guys on his team. Muzzin was one, Clifford the other. He gave one of 2 tough guys 4th line minutes when Clifford should have been on the 3rd line creating havoc. Its what he does. Keefe mismanaged the roster all over the place. Argue or not, Keefe is a rookie coach making rookie mistakes and yes, Torts did outcoach him whether you believe it or not. If you dont agree, ask yourself who won that series? And then ask yourself who had the better roster? The leafs did by a lot. Torts got his team going, Keefe did not and lost the series. Enough of this hot goalie nonsense. That is an excuse why they lost, not the reason they lost. A whole team full of scorers couldn't score? Come on.

\
Clifford is a 4th liner. He was actually a big disappointment with the Leafs. He threw one hit in the series taht everyone overreacted to. He was useles.

 

[KyleDubasBoyGeniua]

Yea, I suppose you guys are right.

2 weeks after being named Leafs GM. That's Toronto only major hockey championshuip in over 50 years. Dubas built it

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

That's something you do when your desperate for a goal, much like pulling the goalie but you don't do that for the whole game because it screws with the rest of the lineup and you get nothing out of them

there's a good reason that Keefe believed the team was desperate for offense. If he made no changes, it wouldn't have magically fixed things and people would complain about that

 

[acrobaticgoalie]

This isn't a torts thing but Keefe had 2 tough guys on his team. Muzzin was one, Clifford the other. He gave one of 2 tough guys 4th line minutes when Clifford should have been on the 3rd line creating havoc. Its what he does. Keefe mismanaged the roster all over the place. Argue or not, Keefe is a rookie coach making rookie mistakes and yes, Torts did outcoach him whether you believe it or not. If you dont agree, ask yourself who won that series? And then ask yourself who had the better roster? The leafs did by a lot. Torts got his team going, Keefe did not and lost the series. Enough of this hot goalie nonsense. That is an excuse why they lost, not the reason they lost. A whole team full of scorers couldn't score? Come on.

So if we put Cliffird on the 3rd line, we all of a sudden score on Korpisalo finally?

 

[KyleDubasBoyGeniua]

So if we put Cliffird on the 3rd line, we all of a sudden score on Korpisalo finally?

He's :Griity", so that answers all. He has no teeth, so that means something./

Clifford is a plug. He's thankfully gone

 

[Martin Skoula]

He's :Griity", so that answers all. He has no teeth, so that means something./

Clifford is a plug. He's thankfully gone

There's no reason to dump on the guy, he was effective enough at his job and the 4th line had some of our best looks at times because they were playing a simple north-south get in the goalie's face game. We have better players for that now.

That being said, the only reason that worked is because it was the 4th line, he would have gotten eaten alive against actual competition. There's 0 justification moving him up, the better move would have been double shifting Matthews/Tavares with him and Spezza or Engvall now and then.

 

[KyleDubasBoyGeniua]

There's no reason to dump on the guy, he was effective enough at his job and the 4th line had some of our best looks at times because they were playing a simple north-south get in the goalie's face game. We have better players for that now.

That being said, the only reason that worked is because it was the 4th line, he would have gotten eaten alive against actual competition. There's 0 justification moving him up, the better move would have been double shifting Matthews/Tavares with him and Spezza or Engvall now and then.

He was bad for the Leafs. Overhyped due to as weird fascination with "Grit". I expected much more.

 

[Kiwi]

Robertson scored the only goal by a non-top6 forward all series lol, what exactly are we screwing with?

William Nylander had 2 goals and 2 assists in that series, we also neutered him and screwed with the entire middle 6 with a bunch of guys either playing out of position or playing with linemates they didn't play with during the season, or both at the same time

Because shock of shocks the top line can't play every minute

there's a good reason that Keefe believed the team was desperate for offense. If he made no changes, it wouldn't have magically fixed things and people would complain about that

Here's the thing, you can make changes in game if you think the team needs an offensive boost but you don't throw out the entire regular season and start screwing with the entire lineup before an elimination game based on a few minutes the game before

It was a panic move that he didn't need to make, he did, it failed and he will learn from it and be a better coach in the future because of it

 

[member 300185]

So if we put Cliffird on the 3rd line, we all of a sudden score on Korpisalo finally?

Yup, much more net presence. All our forwards were soft and not crashing the net for the gritty goals. All soft entries, firing from around the perimeter and not in the hot zone areas...PSA (prime scoring area)

 

[KyleDubasBoyGeniua]

Yup, much more net presence. All our forwards were soft and not crashing the net for the gritty goals. All soft entries, firing from around the perimeter and not in the hot zone areas...PSA (prime scoring area)

12 goals the past 2 seasons combined. The issue is, you need a "Net crasher" who has talent and won't bring the rest of the line down. What happens all the other times he can't crash the net ? That line could be burned so bad.

He's a 4th liner...

 

[ToneDog]

12 goals the past 2 seasons combined. The issue is, you need a "Net crasher" who has talent and won't bring the rest of the line down. What happens all the other times he can't crash the net ? That line could be burned so bad.

He's a 4th liner...

So you are saying acquiring Cliffy (who I liked) was a mistake by Dubas ?? Seems Cliffy was good enough for Dubas to give up a 3rd and offer another contract and good enough for the Blues. Let's see if Simmonds is this year's answer to our lack of grit.

 

[acrobaticgoalie]

Yup, much more net presence. All our forwards were soft and not crashing the net for the gritty goals. All soft entries, firing from around the perimeter and not in the hot zone areas...PSA (prime scoring area)

Clifford has 4 career playoff goals and 15 pts in 60 games including 1 goal in the 24 games when they Kings won the cup. He had 0 pts in the 5 games in the play in round this year. Putting him on the 3rd line with Kerfoot and Kap doesn't win us the series nor does it make Matthews/ Marner score on the 1st line or Tavares/Nylander score on the 2nd line.

Seems like a huge reach here

 

[KyleDubasBoyGeniua]

So you are saying acquiring Cliffy (who I liked) was a mistake by Dubas ?? Seems Cliffy was good enough for Dubas to give up a 3rd and offer another contract and good enough for the Blues. Let's see if Simmonds is this year's answer to our lack of grit.

You're talking like Jack Campbell doesn't exist. He was the main piece in that trade. Very good backup signed for 2 years at 1.4 per.

 

[Menzinger]

No problem.

In terms of possession, the trio had possession nearly 70% of the time they were on the ice.

In terms of scoring chances for and against differential, they were over 60%(very good)

In terms of high danger scoring chances for and against differential, they were over 70%(which is incredible)

Essentially Columbus barely got anything against the Leafs when that trio was out, but the trio was very dangerous, as shown in the illustrations below.

These charts not only show their shot location, but also the quality of the shots/chance through xga etc. The reality is, Columbus got some really lucky breaks against that line, which is the truth.

View attachment 377884

View attachment 377885

View attachment 377886

Good post. I think there's a bit of misremembering/misconstrueding in this thread.

The Leafs lost, so obviously that opens them up for criticism, which is fair. But the Leafs significantly out-chanced the Jackets and the series was decided by 60 minutes of icetime. Some issues aside, I think claiming the Leafs were out coached/classed is pretty inaccurate.

 

[Menzinger]

Yup, much more net presence. All our forwards were soft and not crashing the net for the gritty goals. All soft entries, firing from around the perimeter and not in the hot zone areas...PSA (prime scoring area)

Hes never really been used like that in his career though

 

[ToneDog]

You're talking like Jack Campbell doesn't exist. He was the main piece in that trade. Very good backup signed for 2 years at 1.4 per.

Agreed but why include Cliffy if he does not fill a need ?? Personally I would have liked to see us keep Cliffy and add Simmonds. Unfortunately Cliffy rolled the dice and lost.

 

[KyleDubasBoyGeniua]

Agreed but why include Cliffy if he does not fill a need ?? Personally I would have liked to see us keep Cliffy and add Simmonds. Unfortunately Cliffy rolled the dice and lost.

We'd have to giev up a 2nd just to keep Clifford. He's not worth that. Not when we were able to sign Simmonds without giving-up assets.

 

[ottomaddox]

Torts absolutely schooled Keefe in the playoffs. He is a nice guy but he is at another level. Players like to play for him....because Keefe does not crack the whip so to speak.

The leafs need a guy to push them. The talent is there handsdown to win it all. But someone needs to push them like a Torts/Keenan type coach that wont take any crap from the youngin's.

Is Keefe on a short reign if he fails in the playoffs again?

What are your thoughts?

There's a lot of inexperienced people in this Management group. There's no question about it. I don't like that Dubas isn't surrounded by experienced people. Is Shanny that person? It seems hard to believe at times. I do like that Maclean is with Keefe now. I hope that his role is more than pep talks and line changes.

 

[ottomaddox]

Torts didn't school Keefe. Some people need to learn analyze coaching better. Keefe made many adjustments throughout the series. Tortz got better goaltending. Thats the only reason he won.
There is a good argument Keefe outcoached Torts in the series.
Game 1: game was right there until Freddy allowed an awful goal.
Game 2: Keefe made a systematic adjustment, and Torts had no answers.
Game 3: same story as game 2 but Freddy went into melt down mode.
Game 4: bad until Keefe decided to stack the lines which lead to a great comeback.
Game 5: game was even until Freddy decided to strike again.

Leafs completely outplayed the Jackets in that series, and that tells me Keefe was terrific.

What does whip mean? Thats what Babcock did and where did that get us? Also Keefe was pretty hard on these guys throughout the season.
Keenan? You lost credibility with that option.

The only reason?