What did you know about Sheldon Keefe before he was hired as TOR's head coach?

[ottomaddox]

I want to hear about his reputation, and why Dubas/Shanny thought he was a good hire.

I saw recent pictures of him in the TOR "War room".

He always looks very uncomfortable.

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[DavePoulin4PM]

I knew that Sheldon Keefe uses fear tactics when coaching the SSM Greyhounds and I knew they would never work coaching multi millionaire. He would often tell the SSM players that he can sniff out coach killers because he was one.

I also knew that Sheldon Keefe is not a tactician that is capable of coaching at the NHL level. In Keefes last season he rode Tony DeAngelo 25-30+ minutes a game and he carried them for a large stretch. DeAngelo looked like Bobby Orr, and when he got injured in the playoffs Keefe couldn’t adjust and got badly exposed by Erie Otters HC Kris Knoblauch. It was very obvious that Keefe was not ready to move up.

Keefe has poor character, he doesn’t command the respect of the locker room, and he is not a tactician. He should not be an NHL HC and when he gets fired after this season he will never get another NHL HC job. It is a disgrace that a team like the Leafs (who have more resources than any NHL team) have a head coach so far in over his head. He was obviously a cancer as a player, but people can grow so I did not care about that.

 

[The Hanging Jowl]

I didn't know a thing about him. I know a thing or two now though.

 

[Smif]

I knew that Sheldon Keefe uses fear tactics when coaching the SSM Greyhounds and I knew they would never work coaching multi millionaire. He would often tell the SSM players that he can sniff out coach killers because he was one.

I also knew that Sheldon Keefe is not a tactician that is capable of coaching at the NHL level. In Keefes last season he rode Tony DeAngelo 25-30+ minutes a game and he carried them for a large stretch. DeAngelo looked like Bobby Orr, and when he got injured in the playoffs Keefe couldn’t adjust and got badly exposed by Erie Otters HC Kris Knoblauch. It was very obvious that Keefe was not ready to move up.

Keefe has poor character, he doesn’t command the respect of the locker room, and he is not a tactician. He should not be an NHL HC and when he gets fired after this season he will never get another NHL HC job. It is a disgrace that a team like the Leafs (who have more resources than any NHL team) have a head coach so far in over his head. He was obviously a cancer as a player, but people can grow so I did not care about that.

You only brought up his junior career, professionally, in the AHL he couldn't have been much better.

 

[al secord]

Body language expert makes thread

 

[BayStBullies]

I'm just hoping they stop wasting the talent on this team on this interim coach.

 

[ryno23]

I know one of his assistant coaches when he was coaching Pembroke. He said don't be surprised if Keefe ends up coaching in the NHL one day. He was a hard worker always looking to improve the team or try new tactics that to the old school crowd/coaching fraternity say look weird. He has won at all levels and even as an NHL coach has had success minus the playoffs of course.

He did say that Keefe sometimes ended up riding his hunch or not changing out tactics cause he figures eventually he would be right. That coach did mention he saw him get better with his stint in the OHL and AHL

We saw the latter in the playoffs by refusing to split up 34 and 16.

An experienced guy on the bench might serve Keefe well.

 

[ottomaddox]

I'm just hoping they stop wasting the talent on this team on this interim coach.

I am working as hard as I can to find a good thing to say about him.

Many die hard leaf fans on this board mentioned the PP, and Keefe's coaching as a factor before the playoffs started. Toronto was slipping Vs MTL and he did nothing to adapt. He had a little bit of depth at his disposal and he rarely used it. Could it have hurt to try something fresh on the PP? Maybe he felt there was no room to experiment. Ok well then experiment in the regular season then.

The biggest thing was his reaction to Tavares:

Visibly shaken. Ok. Fine. Many were emotional, but the coach has to be different. He has to push on. He cannot show to the other team that he is falling apart.

 

[nsleaf]

He had a successful but shady junior career..... . He's redeemed now.

 

[diehardleafsfan9878]

I knew that Sheldon Keefe uses fear tactics when coaching the SSM Greyhounds and I knew they would never work coaching multi millionaire. He would often tell the SSM players that he can sniff out coach killers because he was one.

I also knew that Sheldon Keefe is not a tactician that is capable of coaching at the NHL level. In Keefes last season he rode Tony DeAngelo 25-30+ minutes a game and he carried them for a large stretch. DeAngelo looked like Bobby Orr, and when he got injured in the playoffs Keefe couldn’t adjust and got badly exposed by Erie Otters HC Kris Knoblauch. It was very obvious that Keefe was not ready to move up.

Keefe has poor character, he doesn’t command the respect of the locker room, and he is not a tactician. He should not be an NHL HC and when he gets fired after this season he will never get another NHL HC job. It is a disgrace that a team like the Leafs (who have more resources than any NHL team) have a head coach so far in over his head. He was obviously a cancer as a player, but people can grow so I did not care about that.

Dave you wouldn't know water if you fell out of a boat.

 

[Suntouchable13]

All I knew about him is that he wasn't Mike Babcock. That was his best quality to me at the time. A young coach with fresh ideas, or so I thought. After this past season and another playoff failure, I realized that Mike Babcock was right a lot of the time.

 

[Lauro]

Good junior coach, very good/successful AHL coach.

 

[Aus34Matt]

I want to hear about his reputation, and why Dubas/Shanny thought he was a good hire.

Obvious reason for the hire (both Marlies and Leafs) is he coached the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, nothing else.

 

[usernamezrhardtodo]

All I knew about him is that he wasn't Mike Babcock. That was his best quality to me at the time. A young coach with fresh ideas, or so I thought. After this past season and another playoff failure, I realized that Mike Babcock was right a lot of the time.

Me too, I was so critical of Babs and his 'Play the right way' offensively stifling coaching at the time, but now realize he had a very good point. We played more of a Babcock type of game during the season and stuck with it to get really good results. The playoffs is another matter though and if we had made some adjustments we could have done the deal in 6 games.

I hated the way Babs was so full of himself all the time and escaped criticism by the media for the most part. Keefe is not being called out enough for the PP or lack of adjustments either.

Does the media take it easy on them for extended access or is it because the 2 main hockey media organizations are part of the ownership group?

 

[Racer88]

I didn’t know anything about him but I now know he is an awful tactical coach and an awful motivator.
He couldn’t fix the PP, he couldn’t motivated these well paid “stars” to show up on time or go the extra effort to close out a game and he couldn’t adapt when his 2nd line centre went down to injury.
This is all I need to know about him.
The only chance we have to make the playoffs this coming year is if Dubas replaces him.

 

[forecheck]

You only brought up his junior career, professionally, in the AHL he couldn't have been much better.

An AHL All star team which was Bought and paid for ..... A monkey could have won with that team

 

[forecheck]

He said that his Idol in Hockey was Kyle Dubas on one of the radio programs right after he was hired ( No Joke ) ,,,,, Politician who has sniffed out a way to the NHL just like his Idol.

 

[nuck]

The results in the AHL speak for themselves. He won with veterans and no stars so that should be as safe a choice as an average team could make and not as obviously dumb a move as some haters are suggesting. Good judgement can overcome a lack of experience but he needs to have one of the two. A rookie NHL coach who supposedly was in sync with Kyle's vision of how the club could win and therefore more likely to succeed than his predecessor.

Edit. The above is what I knew before he got promoted.

 

[Leaf Fans]

I knew his history and that he can build winners.

 

[yubbers]

His Frost connection. Nothing about his career as a coach.

 

[6ix]

I knew that his last name rhymed with queef

 

[PromisedLand]

the analytics IMO are more informative in juniors than NHL

- In Juniors you hardly find a team that plays a highly defensive system; it is all about offense; you don't get stellar checking lines, stud Ds that can shut you down or goalies that will stand on their head as often compared to NHL

the jump from juniors where you can often play against competition that is not at par or close to your level and significantly boost your production values and wins; is way different than in the NHL (except for tanking teams perhaps).

using this context; all I knew about Keefe was that he was huge into analytics like dubas. They saw that analytics work at junior but there is a HUGE subject matter/information gap where the relative competition in NHL and Juniors is just not the same and the same strategies that worked in the juniors or for that matter AHL will not apply in the NHL as teams in NHL usually are much close in execution/talent overall compared junors/AHL.

That is, you may have a no1 center (Matthews) but not have a true 1D or true 1G; other team may not have a true no1 center but may have either a true 1D or true 1G; or checking players that can match stride for stride in defensive metrics of your offensive players.


Bottom Line: Keefe is dubas' lap dog; Keefe does whatever dubas tells him to do. Dubas' model is flawed and Keefe's experience or approach to hockey is very Junior like; it isn't NHL quality. We all knew that Keefe/Dubas are all about analytics, which is fine at the Junior level but that will not translate to the NHL 1 for 1 for the reasons provided above and we knew it was bound to not work.

There is a quote from Dubas claiming that "he will bet his career on it"; he hasn't gotten any result(s); and still has a job. I think it tells more about the incompetence of MLSE board.

 

[makbeer]

All I knew about him is that he wasn't Mike Babcock. That was his best quality to me at the time. A young coach with fresh ideas, or so I thought. After this past season and another playoff failure, I realized that Mike Babcock was right a lot of the time.

Yeah...my biggest realisation with Keefe has been... "so that's why Babs did X, Y and X."

 

[banks]

I knew he was doing well in the AHL, and that he used to be connected to Frost/Danton.

That's about it.

 

[justashadowof]

Super tight with David Frost maybe even the player leader amongst that circle. Won't drop any details but some of them can found. Not good.