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What can we do to get Keefe fired.

kevsh said:
I wonder if Keefe's sudden desire to hold the stars accountability was all of his own making or Brad had a talk with him?

It just seems odd that Sheldon let the inmates run the asylum for his first 4 years, so much so he publicly walked back the only time he every criticized them, and during that time there was plenty of times they deserved a benching, and just decided now was the time? Or was it merely taking a different approach because the team has never looked this shaky this late into the season before?
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I was thinking this exact same way.
 
Why is it every time I think Keefe is about to get fired the team starts winning again?

This guy has more lives than a cat. He's escaped more times than Houdini. Keefe is like a severe case of jock rash.

There isn't enough itch cream in the world to relieve fans of him.

I'm sick of this guy with his bad brain doing stupid things. He's not a very good head coach. His version of playing fast just means playing rushed and stupid.

How much longer does Keefe deserve to prove himself anyway?

Let's just suppose Dubas was right and Keefe will be a star coach after ten years in the league. Just because Dubas was wrong about everything else doesn't mean he was wrong about Keefe too. Well the average tenure of an NHL coach is 2.4 years and Keefe has been here for twice that already.

Does he really deserve another five years hoping he eventually gets it right because reasons that aren't true?
 
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Every coach has a shelf life and I believe they move on from him after the playoffs if they dont make noise. The extension was given so they can keep the player honest. Without the the extension the players know the team owes him nothing and they can turn on him and it makes it easy for a coaching change
 
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How dare you speak of firing Keefe. He is our Forever Coach. <3

/$
 
Leaf4Life79 said:
Absolutely is! He is an NHL coach, not an AHL coach . He is too soft and who the hell plays the 4th line with less than 2 minutes left when we are down a point, Keefe sucks, and Berube would be a huge upgrade.
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How many years have you coached? There is a lot more to it and knowing which line to put out is not just 1,2,3 4 sequence. You have to read your players and match ups. For example, 2nd line coming in is gassed, 3rd line not playing well, top line gets an extra 30 secs after 4th line plays for 30 secs maybe to match up what is out there There could be many reasons why a 4th line could be put out, not just a cycling 1,2,3,4 sequence.

One feeble example of a line change is not a good enough reason to give one coach a nod over the other. Rather it just shows you really don't know what all is involved in coaching.
 
RealityBytes said:
How many years have you coached? There is a lot more to it and knowing which line to put out is not just 1,2,3 4 sequence. You have to read your players and match ups. For example, 2nd line coming in is gassed, 3rd line not playing well, top line gets an extra 30 secs after 4th line plays for 30 secs maybe to match up what is out there There could be many reasons why a 4th line could be put out, not just a cycling 1,2,3,4 sequence.

One feeble example of a line change is not a good enough reason to give one coach a nod over the other. Rather it just shows you really don't know what all is involved in coaching.
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Same could be said for you....how many years have you coached? I speak for many fans, the guy is not an nhl calibur coach.
 
He's now the 5th longest tenured head coach.

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3 of the guys ahead of him have won a Cup or two, and Brind'Amour has made the Conference Finals twice, won a round every season he's coached, and has led the Canes to Division Titles three times, and only one of those was during the fake Covid Divisions.

Keefe's accomplishments, or rather lack thereof, pale in comparison to the men ahead of him. Why this franchise is so loyal to him and hesitant to move on is beyond me.
 
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Leaf4Life79 said:
Same could be said for you....how many years have you coached? I speak for many fans, the guy is not an nhl calibur coach.
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7 years with two at AAA, three at AA, and two at A level. Different sport though. Certification at NCCP level 2 in two sports. One year as a AAA manager/overseer.

You have to read your players.
 
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NMacrules said:
I'm 60. I have been playing since I was 3 including 3 years in Europe. I have coached at all levels for 22 years. I am certified advanced 2 or the old level 5. I assure you, bench minors are the coaches fault. Not having control of the bench is in fact, the coaches responsibility.
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Was last nights bench minor Keefes fault?
 
I belive we need a new coach. not someone they fear. But someone they respect and look up to. With keefe i dont get that feeling.
 
ACC1224 said:
:laugh: Was that him throwing McMann over the boards or was he holding the door closed so Gregor couldn't get off the ice?
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:laugh::laugh::popcorn: Whose responsible for implementing line change systems? Who put Gregor and McMann in the lineup without explaining how to change? Everything that happens in a game is the coaches responsibility. When you lead the league in To many men minors, then perhaps the coach should have a few words to the team about it.

The Leafs took yet another Too Many Men on the ice penalty, which was their 13th so far this season, a staggering total that “leads” the NHL at this point. Most of the league has half as many bench minors (or fewer) than the Leafs.





I think back to last season's Maple Leafs, where the team’s power play struggled down the stretch (OK, the last two-thirds of the season) and the consensus seemed to be “Ah, they’ll figure it out when the playoffs start, they’re too talented for it not to work” … only for it to keep struggling. It was a problem, and in the end it hurt them. Trends don’t often disappear when playoffs begin.

This Too Many Men thing is a problem, and so there’s got to be at least some consideration given to it coming back to bite them at the wrong time in the playoffs.

I wanted to know if there’s been a trend in how or why they’ve given away so many power plays this way, so I went through every one of their Too Many Men calls (“TMM” going forward) this season and determined that there are, in fact, a few trends.

First, they’ve struggled with the long change, not in getting their forwards off the ice, but their defenders. That makes sense. When your D can only change on the offensive side of centre they’ve often got tough decisions to make (“Do I have time to get off the ice here, or will that expose us defensively?”). Of course, that challenge exists for all teams, and the Leafs have fallen behind here.

Toronto TMM calls by period:

1st: 4
2nd: 6
3rd: 3

Four of the six TMM penalties they've taken in the second period involved a defenceman trying to get off the rink. To be more specific, Morgan Rielly has struggled with this, as on four occasions he’s been involved in the mix-ups, either struggling to get off or jumping to get on. You can see him in this clip below bottom right, racing across the ice from the weak side to change when he gets worried about the puck coming back at the Leafs awfully fast.

Funny enough, the biggest offenders have been the people you’d most expect to know what proper line change execution looks like, and captain John Tavares has been involved on four occasions as well, even more directly than Rielly. More on that in a second.

The other main trend is tied to turnovers. This is my strongest hunch as to why the Leafs have been busted more than any other team. Too Many Men calls happen most frequently when the puck is near the bench area while players are in the midst of a change, and forced to decide whether to play the puck or not. When the puck is near changing players, it makes the refs pay attention, and they blow the play dead far more quickly than when the puck is elsewhere. Players never change when the puck is around their bench, or when it’s going to be around their bench … at least they don’t on purpose. That means this pucks-at-the-bench-while-changing mishap comes about by surprise, and usually after a turnover.

The Leafs are a very good team at protecting the puck in terms of rate, in that they don’t turn it over frequently compared to how often they have it. They’re eighth in the NHL, rate-wise, in turnovers. But because they have it so much – they’re second in the NHL in possession – they’re 29th in the NHL in total turnovers, relinquishing the puck 105.6 times per game, according to Sportlogiq.

I should also note they’re second in the NHL in takeaway rate, meaning there’s a lot of surprise change of possessions in Toronto's games, which leads to more opportunities for line changes to be exposed. When the puck stays in one end, refs rarely call TMM on a player jumping on the ice five or even 10 feet too soon.

With that then, Toronto needs to be all the more prudent on each change, given the likelihood of the puck surprisingly changing direction in their games. The Leafs players coming on the ice have been too eager to jump out, but it’s hard to blame those players when you see what some of the guys coming off the ice are doing.

That brings us back to Tavares, starting with the game against the Lightning. If you aren’t sure you’re going to change, maybe don’t motion to the bench you’re coming off? At the top left of the screen at the start of this GIF is 91 in white (a little hidden behind a teammate), who takes a hand off the top of his stick and gives the bench a wave to signal for a change (he had been out for a full shift already). Then the Leafs turn it over and he corrects course back into the play. His teammate saw him wave, saw the turnover, and rushed out on to the ice.

Tavares did it again versus Seattle. Nick Robertson turns it over on a rush, Seattle gets it, and Tavares is at the end of a shift. He raises his stick to the bench to start to say “I’m coming,” but Seattle plays it right up that area, and an over-eager Leafs player who had a leg on the boards dropped down and got in the way of the play.

Earlier in the year you’ll see Tavares do it against Vegas too. He’s centre screen and at the centre ice dot here in blue, and gives the one-arm raise “Yup, one for me” change motion to the bench before noticing a couple charging Vegas players and changing his course back into the play. In all these situations you can see how he would be a little vision-obscured (behind players or in a crowd) for the player coming on to follow, and guys just trust that because he’s signalled he’s coming off.

All I know is it’s common to see coaches blamed for TMM calls, and there are times when they’re certainly to blame. Sometimes a coach will tell four guys they’re going on instead of three, or they don’t communicate clearly, or they call two left wingers and no right, so two guys change for one. These things happen.

After an audit of all 13 TMM calls against Toronto this season, I saw one time I couldn’t make sense of what happened and I think Keefe saying “my bad” after the replay.

These are all systems implemented by Keefe. He is responsible for all the TMM's. There are teams with no TMM's. Yet the Leafs lead the league. Do you not see a problem here?

Keefe is the problem, he is the only consistent here.
 
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NMacrules said:
:laugh::laugh::popcorn: Whose responsible for implementing line change systems? Who put Gregor and McMann in the lineup without explaining how to change? Everything that happens in a game is the coaches responsibility. When you lead the league in To many men minors, then perhaps the coach should have a few words to the team about it.

The Leafs took yet another Too Many Men on the ice penalty, which was their 13th so far this season, a staggering total that “leads” the NHL at this point. Most of the league has half as many bench minors (or fewer) than the Leafs.





I think back to last season's Maple Leafs, where the team’s power play struggled down the stretch (OK, the last two-thirds of the season) and the consensus seemed to be “Ah, they’ll figure it out when the playoffs start, they’re too talented for it not to work” … only for it to keep struggling. It was a problem, and in the end it hurt them. Trends don’t often disappear when playoffs begin.

This Too Many Men thing is a problem, and so there’s got to be at least some consideration given to it coming back to bite them at the wrong time in the playoffs.

I wanted to know if there’s been a trend in how or why they’ve given away so many power plays this way, so I went through every one of their Too Many Men calls (“TMM” going forward) this season and determined that there are, in fact, a few trends.

First, they’ve struggled with the long change, not in getting their forwards off the ice, but their defenders. That makes sense. When your D can only change on the offensive side of centre they’ve often got tough decisions to make (“Do I have time to get off the ice here, or will that expose us defensively?”). Of course, that challenge exists for all teams, and the Leafs have fallen behind here.

Toronto TMM calls by period:

1st: 4
2nd: 6
3rd: 3

Four of the six TMM penalties they've taken in the second period involved a defenceman trying to get off the rink. To be more specific, Morgan Rielly has struggled with this, as on four occasions he’s been involved in the mix-ups, either struggling to get off or jumping to get on. You can see him in this clip below bottom right, racing across the ice from the weak side to change when he gets worried about the puck coming back at the Leafs awfully fast.

Funny enough, the biggest offenders have been the people you’d most expect to know what proper line change execution looks like, and captain John Tavares has been involved on four occasions as well, even more directly than Rielly. More on that in a second.

The other main trend is tied to turnovers. This is my strongest hunch as to why the Leafs have been busted more than any other team. Too Many Men calls happen most frequently when the puck is near the bench area while players are in the midst of a change, and forced to decide whether to play the puck or not. When the puck is near changing players, it makes the refs pay attention, and they blow the play dead far more quickly than when the puck is elsewhere. Players never change when the puck is around their bench, or when it’s going to be around their bench … at least they don’t on purpose. That means this pucks-at-the-bench-while-changing mishap comes about by surprise, and usually after a turnover.

The Leafs are a very good team at protecting the puck in terms of rate, in that they don’t turn it over frequently compared to how often they have it. They’re eighth in the NHL, rate-wise, in turnovers. But because they have it so much – they’re second in the NHL in possession – they’re 29th in the NHL in total turnovers, relinquishing the puck 105.6 times per game, according to Sportlogiq.

I should also note they’re second in the NHL in takeaway rate, meaning there’s a lot of surprise change of possessions in Toronto's games, which leads to more opportunities for line changes to be exposed. When the puck stays in one end, refs rarely call TMM on a player jumping on the ice five or even 10 feet too soon.

With that then, Toronto needs to be all the more prudent on each change, given the likelihood of the puck surprisingly changing direction in their games. The Leafs players coming on the ice have been too eager to jump out, but it’s hard to blame those players when you see what some of the guys coming off the ice are doing.

That brings us back to Tavares, starting with the game against the Lightning. If you aren’t sure you’re going to change, maybe don’t motion to the bench you’re coming off? At the top left of the screen at the start of this GIF is 91 in white (a little hidden behind a teammate), who takes a hand off the top of his stick and gives the bench a wave to signal for a change (he had been out for a full shift already). Then the Leafs turn it over and he corrects course back into the play. His teammate saw him wave, saw the turnover, and rushed out on to the ice.

Tavares did it again versus Seattle. Nick Robertson turns it over on a rush, Seattle gets it, and Tavares is at the end of a shift. He raises his stick to the bench to start to say “I’m coming,” but Seattle plays it right up that area, and an over-eager Leafs player who had a leg on the boards dropped down and got in the way of the play.

Earlier in the year you’ll see Tavares do it against Vegas too. He’s centre screen and at the centre ice dot here in blue, and gives the one-arm raise “Yup, one for me” change motion to the bench before noticing a couple charging Vegas players and changing his course back into the play. In all these situations you can see how he would be a little vision-obscured (behind players or in a crowd) for the player coming on to follow, and guys just trust that because he’s signalled he’s coming off.
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It's a common tactic for the opposition to play the puck into the area of the bench when a line change is happening to try and hit a player or bait them into playing a puck so as to draw a penalty.

The onus is on the coach to manage his players. I don't think anyone has been benched for taking a too many men penalty yet. So it appears Keefe approves of, and is likely instructing, his players being aggressive in jumping off the bench as early as possible to cheat the play.

Since he keeps allowing it to happen he's either stupid or they gain enough of a tactical advantage to offset the "extra" too many men penalties they take above league average.

I think he's just stupid.
 
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I am pretty sure if the Leafs go out early or miss the playoffs, then BT will pick his coach.

I don't see it happening this year.

Unless it's right before the deadline, used to change something without making a trade
 
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TMLBlueandWhite said:
It's a common tactic for the opposition to play the puck into the area of the bench when a line change is happening to try and hit a player or bait them into playing a puck so as to draw a penalty.

The onus is on the coach to manage his players. I don't think anyone has been benched for taking a too many men penalty yet. So it appears Keefe approves of, and is likely instructing, his players being aggressive in jumping off the bench as early as possible to cheat the play.

Since he keeps allowing it to happen he's either stupid or they gain enough of a tactical advantage to offset the "extra" too many men penalties they take above league average.

I think he's just stupid.
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We agree
 
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