JUST-IN: The heat on coach Sheldon Keefe is getting hotter

Mike Babcock was fired as Maple Leafs coach in the middle of Gray Cup week right after the 2019 Hockey Hall of Fame weekend in Toronto.
He was fired because the Leafs had no structure, no team identity, scored too often and too easily, were weak on the penalty kill, didn’t know how to play without the puck, had a losing record and didn’t seem ready. compete most nights.
Firing a coach may not be a deterrent, but the reasons for letting Babcock go (besides personality) – a team lacking structure, a team without an identity, a team giving up too much against goals, a team unable to play without a puck, a team not ready to compete the most. nights – exactly the kind of situation Sheldon Keefe finds himself in today.
The Leafs were 9-10-4 when Brendan Shanahan and Kyle Dubas decided to fire Babcock. Probably came 23 shows too late. The Leafs are 6-5-2 through 13 games, 10 fewer than under Babcock in 2013, but the numbers weren’t the Leafs’ kind on Thursday morning, ranking 12th in goals against, 28th in rebounds and 26th in penalties, fifth. on the power play, 25th in set wins and 15th in break points.
Aside from the power play, this early season has been a disaster for the supposed Stanley Cup contenders. And you see an intensity in and around Coach Keefe that you rarely see in any other season.
This will be his first time working with CEO Brad Treliving. This is the start of his fifth season as Leafs coach. This should not happen now.
In the past, Keefe was defended by general manager Kyle Dubas, who had a lot of faith in the coach.
Treliving impressed the coach when they met in their many meetings over the summer. He believed they were a great team as a coach and as a GM, but right now when part of the team fails, the coach fails, the GM mostly fails.
It’s early — and it’s a big setback for any team that falls short of its goals — but the Leafs don’t look good, and if there’s a difference between the year Babcock was fired and today, it’s because of the big boys in the clubhouse. . – Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly, John Tavares and, to a lesser extent, Mitch Marner – are playing pretty well. Their best players were their best players.
But the team still concedes so many goals that it would take six or seven to win on most nights. Especially at home, where the Leafs don’t seem to be lacking in terms of defense and goaltending.
What the Leafs lack now, and what Keefe brought to the club when he took over as coach in 2019, is structure. They don’t play a structured game. Over the years, despite their playoff failures, the Leafs have been built quite well under Keefe. They went from a team that couldn’t play defense at all to a team that could compete with almost anyone in the league on a nightly basis.
The structure he brought — and Treliving said as much when he broke down Leafs film last season — was impressive. For all the talk about the Leafs’ blue-line weaknesses, they haven’t given up much.
That was then. Now they give up a lot.
Treliving’s offseason acquisitions certainly didn’t help much. John Klingberg was on the ice against 16 even strength goals. In Vancouver, Norris Trophy favorite Quinn Hughes scored 19 goals, three for three, on the ice Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena.