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Sheldon Keefe Discussion Thread

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Keefe doing some strange lineups and tactics again. Doing stuff so stupid I haven't seen since earlier this season when he mismanaged OT over and over again. Funny how we always focus on the players and what could help us at TDL but I think the weakest link is proving to be Keefe. No time would be too soon IMHO to move on to another option with more experience.
 
Gilmour1996 said:
Keefe doing some strange lineups and tactics again. Doing stuff so stupid I haven't seen since earlier this season when he mismanaged OT over and over again. Funny how we always focus on the players and what could help us at TDL but I think the weakest link is proving to be Keefe. No time would be too soon IMHO to move on to another option with more experience.
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Imagine going against the Bruins in round 2 with Cassidy behind the bench.
 
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Fogelhund said:
www.sportsnet.ca

How Maple Leafs’ Sheldon Keefe is jamming it to all his critics

Sweeping a four-game road trip in an impressively consistent fashion, Sheldon Keefe’s team is on a heater right now. But make no mistake, the Toronto Maple Leafs head coach came out of the gates hot.
www.sportsnet.ca www.sportsnet.ca
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What a load

"“When things are not necessarily perfect, he finds a way to be at his best and get the most out of the group. The thing for me about Sheldon that has been most encouraging in working with him, even as we have gone through this season where we have had stretches where we haven’t played as well: the group responds to him."

This is the guy who every year has no answers in the playoffs when team jam things up. A team that starts on time sometimes, plays to the level of their oponent, or refuses to take them seriously and mails it in. He punishes some and let's others get away with anything - under the guise of some players need more pushing.
 
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The 11/7 and Holl / Kerfoot stuff writes itself at this point, I think this guy is a complete dumbass.

Worse yet is Marner basically hit 30 mins TOI vs Colorado

We're going into the playoffs, doing 11/7 and loading that TOI on our big guns is a dumb idea. You can probably start rolling those minutes back so they're fresh for the playoffs.
 
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Too many moves at the trade deadline. Too many new bodies to accommodate and please. I liked where this team was going with the O'Reilly, Acciari, Lafferty, and McCabe deals, but everything after that damaged the chemistry of the team. Hopefully these guys figure out before the playoffs.
 
My criticism of Keefe is he’s always looking to find solutions for problems that don’t necessarily exist while unable to pinpoint real problems and solve them in focused ways.

Ok, so you want to throw everyone in a blender in the off chance there’s an injury and you aren’t repeating the situation of playing Nylander at center in an elimination game from 3x years ago.

Or you have a top pairing of Rielly and Brodie that works, but you want to recreate Brodie and Muzzin with McCabe because we shut down Edmonton on the North Division 2 years ago and that was such a high water mark. Meanwhile, the team is literally build on the premise of outgunning the opposition at the elite end. So why not just let it ride?

Or Samsonov is winning the number one job handily and has been there for the Leafs every step of the way but you want to reintroduce competition.

Or moving around Kerfoot like he’s the fixer when all he does is destroy offense.

Or definitively banish Simmonds and make him feel like an outsider despite going back to him every time there’s a physical situation.
 
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Damn it, they should have fired this moron at the beginning of the year and brought in somebody with half a nut sack. He does not hold anybody accountable, and his crummy coaching cost us last night. It's all fine and dandy that they got a loser point against the defending champs, but they should have won.

The game starts last night and the Leafs are in the offensive zone ready to establish some sort of momentum and then Kampf floats some stupid slow cross ice back handed pass and it all goes to crap. The Avs intercept and transition the other way resulting in a lengthy defensive seige in our end. Instead of seizing momentum we're back on our heels, and while it didn't result in a goal it kept us from getting off to a good start. How does Keefe reward Kampf? A seat on the bench perhaps? No, he starts him in the overtime period. Everyone in the world figures hes just taking the faceoff, but no, Kampf is out there for a full shift to start overtime. WTF???!!!

Right now we're going with 11 forwards, so it's not like Keefe doesn't have options to deal with this crap but he refuses to hold anybody accountable. Fine if he doesn't have the balls to hold Morgan Reilly accountable, but you can at least hold Kampf, he of the 7 goals accountable. There's no excuse right now whatsoever.

This team is good enough, but it needs a kick in the ass. Too bad Keefe decides to be generous with the hugs and participation ribbons instead of using the boot. He thinks his job is about applying psychological band aids to multi millionaire man children, when it should be about getting them to win a cup. This team would be in such a better place if Babcock never left, or if they had fired Keefe at the beginning of the season and given Trotz 3/4 of the year to get them ready. This wasted opportunity might be worse than when we blew it to the Habs in the bubble, because the team is oh so much better now. Aaaaarrrggggghh!!!!!!!!!!!
 
How do you know someone is qualified to be
FiveHoleo said:
Damn it, they should have fired this moron at the beginning of the year and brought in somebody with half a nut sack. He does not hold anybody accountable, and his crummy coaching cost us last night. It's all fine and dandy that they got a loser point against the defending champs, but they should have won.

The game starts last night and the Leafs are in the offensive zone ready to establish some sort of momentum and then Kampf floats some stupid slow cross ice back handed pass and it all goes to crap. The Avs intercept and transition the other way resulting in a lengthy defensive seige in our end. Instead of seizing momentum we're back on our heels, and while it didn't result in a goal it kept us from getting off to a good start. How does Keefe reward Kampf? A seat on the bench perhaps? No, he starts him in the overtime period. Everyone in the world figures hes just taking the faceoff, but no, Kampf is out there for a full shift to start overtime. WTF???!!!

Right now we're going with 11 forwards, so it's not like Keefe doesn't have options to deal with this crap but he refuses to hold anybody accountable. Fine if he doesn't have the balls to hold Morgan Reilly accountable, but you can at least hold Kampf, he of the 7 goals accountable. There's no excuse right now whatsoever.

This team is good enough, but it needs a kick in the ass. Too bad Keefe decides to be generous with the hugs and participation ribbons instead of using the boot. He thinks his job is about applying psychological band aids to multi millionaire man children, when it should be about getting them to win a cup. This team would be in such a better place if Babcock never left, or if they had fired Keefe at the beginning of the season and given Trotz 3/4 of the year to get them ready. This wasted opportunity might be worse than when we blew it to the Habs in the bubble, because the team is oh so much better now. Aaaaarrrggggghh!!!!!!!!!!!
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When they lost to the Habs I knew the team was doomed
 
11 and 7 messes up everything, not sure why its even considered. Its not used in the NHL for a reason, the players hate it, as a fan I hate it. Keefe needs to find his 6 dmen and move on.
 
mapleleaf979 said:
11 and 7 messes up everything, not sure why its even considered. Its not used in the NHL for a reason, the players hate it, as a fan I hate it. Keefe needs to find his 6 dmen and move on.
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Maybe he'll revert back when TB passes the Leafs for home ice advantage...does he think playing Marner 26 to 30 minutes a night is healthy heading into the playoffs?
 
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There's very little tactics discussion here. I'll just copy and paste a thing I made for another website:

On defense, they tend to hold their forwards back further than a typical team to help support the defesemen. One of the major differences between Babcock and Keefe is that Babcock preferred stretch passes and chip and chase plays to get the puck out of the defensive zone as fast as possible and get on offense. This required the forwards to exit the zone early so they could have space to receive a pass from a defensemen. This also meant however that defensemen were sometimes out numbered on breakout plays and often in one on one situations. This type of breakout works best if you have multiple defensemen who can skate well and/or can handle the puck well. We unfortunately at the time had Polak, Hainsey and Zaitsev.

With Keefe, forwards stay back and dmen pass them the puck in short tight spaces and the forwards will rush out of the zone. If there is an opening - usually Nylander and Mikeyhev when he was here, will blow the zone and give a defensemen an opening for an effective stretch pass leading to an odd man rush. Our defensemen are much better with the puck than the Babcock era dmen we used to have. Rielly is a bit of an outlier in that he is the one guy empowered or able to rush out of the zone consistently on his own. Liljegren and Sandin when he was here will often join rushes but rarely lead them. Rielly was allowed to do this under Babcock as well. I sometimes think he's just a bad fit for this team because his role is so unique here.

Offensively when they set up in the O-zone, Babcock like to keep a man in the low slot area for high danger shots and like funneling pucks into the netfront. With Keefe, he prefers to have a forward up at the blue line for a 3-2 setup in the zone. The third man on the blueline allows for either dmen to pinch more often which creates additional passing lanes into high danger areas. For Matthews, Nylander and Tavares who all have lethal shots from medium to long distance the extra space also gives them room to get a shot off.

Here's a goal from from Keefe's first season as coach that illustrates it: - it starts at the 3:45 of the video.

1 - Tavares grabs the puck and passes it to Muzzin.

2 - Muzzin passes it to Marner who's on the blue line as the 3rd Dman.

3 - Canucks player 52 decides to attack Marner. Holl sees that he has support and an opening so he pinches down and this gives Marner a passing lane to a wide open Holl

4 - With Holl being wide open and 52 now out of position, Canucks player 70 has to rotate over to cover Holl, this leaves the low slot open.

5 - Tavares rotates over to the open ice and makes himself available for a pass from Holl. Hyman also was at the netfront in case for a deflection or rebound but he also importantly takes attention from Canucks player 42 as he is in the most dangerous position to score and his man is not in a great position to defend if the puck goes his way.

6 - Holl elects to pass to Tavares, Tavares scores.

If you watch closely, this is a sequences the Leafs do ALL the time with various players. It creates a high danger shot almost every single time. In this specific game I noticed they tried that three separate times before scoring on the 4th attempt.
 
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Stephen said:
My criticism of Keefe is he’s always looking to find solutions for problems that don’t necessarily exist while unable to pinpoint real problems and solve them in focused ways.

Ok, so you want to throw everyone in a blender in the off chance there’s an injury and you aren’t repeating the situation of playing Nylander at center in an elimination game from 3x years ago.

Or you have a top pairing of Rielly and Brodie that works, but you want to recreate Brodie and Muzzin with McCabe because we shut down Edmonton on the North Division 2 years ago and that was such a high water mark. Meanwhile, the team is literally build on the premise of outgunning the opposition at the elite end. So why not just let it ride?

Or Samsonov is winning the number one job handily and has been there for the Leafs every step of the way but you want to reintroduce competition.

Or moving around Kerfoot like he’s the fixer when all he does is destroy offense.

Or definitively banish Simmonds and make him feel like an outsider despite going back to him every time there’s a physical situation.
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Those are certainly some very odd and questionable interpretations of the coach doing really normal things, like:
-Testing out different combinations, situations, and scenarios a month prior to the playoffs in largely meaningless games while we're missing two forwards from our playoff roster
-Testing out a shutdown pairing, like our top defensive team used effectively last year in the playoffs against the exact same team we'll face this year
-Giving our second goalie a game or two when he hasn't played in a while
-Trying to find the best fit and role for one of our versatile depth players
-Justifiably demoting Simmonds, who hasn't seen the ice in over a month and a half, after giving him plenty of opportunities and treating him extremely well
 
The 11/7 cranks are one of the most amusing things this year.

Everyone and their dog knew the Leafs were going to be testing out pairings with the glut at the back and so the Leafs temporarily went to that format to set up for the playoffs.

It looks like they will be going back to the standard 12/6 as soon as Sat.

What the hell are so many people going on about? (and it appears to be the same people who say the playoff are the only thing that counts)

I'd actually like to see a few more games of it with Schenn having been out of the loop so long to get him some reps with different guys while mixing others but I'm thinking they are close to deciding who we are running with.
 
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Zybalto said:
The 11/7 cranks are one of the most amusing things this year.

Everyone and their dog knew the Leafs were going to be testing out pairings with the glut at the back and so the Leafs temporarily went to that format to set up for the playoffs.

It looks like they will be going back to the standard 12/6 as soon as Sat.

What the hell are so many people going on about? (and it appears to be the same people who say the playoff are the only thing that counts)

I'd actually like to see a few more games of it with Schenn having been out of the loop so long to get him some reps with different guys while mixing others but I'm thinking they are close to deciding who we are running with.
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1-3-1. And against NJ he abandoned it and won. Cranks lol. And your argument suggests he had no choice. Go forbid her rest Gio, what crank would suggest such absurdity.
 
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