Maple Leafs’ Keefe Backtracks On Harsh Comments: Is It Too Late?

Toronto Maple Leafs’ fans and NHL insiders are still not entirely sure what Sheldon Keefe clarified today about his ‘elite players’ comment, saying that his stars needed to be better. He didn’t drop names and he wasn’t slamming his fist on the podium, he simply stated an obvious fact… that his team, led by his elite stars needed to step up if the Maple Leafs are going to win hockey games. It was a bullet he pulled out early in the season and he’s being taken to task for it.

Related: The 9 Most Skilled NHL Players (Who Wow Fans Nightly)

Unfortunately, as is often the case in cities like Toronto, fans and media are losing their minds about their club’s start and, in some cases, already calling for change. That might start with the removal of Keefe if these fans have their way and his comments only fuel their fire to spearhead a quick dismissal, or at the very least, their contention is that there might be a rift between the coach and his star players.

The Leafs have played two of four games horribly. They’ve often not resembled the team people envisioned on paper, and with news of Matt Murray’s injury and Jake Muzzin going down, things are only looking bleaker, even though it’s only four games into the 2022-23 schedule.

That the Leafs lost to the Arizona Coyotes — a team that has obviously no intention of contending this season — only makes matters worse and was just icing on the cake for a rough week. Keefe said that his team had elite players and the Coyotes’ team didn’t. And, he hinted that to see that his elite guys didn’t step up and play like elite guys is why they lost.

After the near uproar that was the coach’s comments, Keefe tried to clarify with the media what his intentions were the following day. He said he used the wrong words to try and describe what he wanted to describe, which was that the team’s five-on-five play needed to be better. He didn’t mean anything beyond that and the players didn’t actually know what he was talking about and didn’t feel like he had targeted them. Mitch Marner on Sheldon Keefe’s recent remarks on the Leafs’ top players: “I talked to him today. He explained what he meant to say and how it came out, and everything like that. We’ll leave it at that … We have closed doors here for a reason.”

It is Keefe’s job to get the most out of his stars, and frankly, all of his players. As Chris Johnston of Northstar Bets writes, “It falls on Keefe to push and prod and coax them there – and he’s been unafraid to wield the hammer on more than one occasion, including during a training camp practice last month where he angrily stopped a drill twice before having his players skate sprints.” The question is, how far can he push? In today’s NHL, the stars have far more power than ever before and to call them out this early in the season feels like a massive miscalculation. When it comes to who wins and loses within the structure of an organization, it’s often the players and if someone like Matthews or Marner doesn’t want Keefe barking orders any longer, or they feel like he’s unfairly jumping down their throats without giving them a chance to get a season that has 78 games left back on track, his continued stay in Toronto might be short.

By no means are the Leafs at the point of panic yet. Johnston also points out, “For as much discussion as the coach’s demeanour has generated in the market, there is no evidence that he’s lost his dressing room. A well-placed source says that Keefe still has the attention and respect of key members of the team.” That said, there was talk this offseason about changes at the GM position. With that sort of change typically comes a new coach. Both Dubas and Keefe have to know their respective windows are closing. Perhaps that’s why he was so quick to air his frustrations publicly.

Even Keefe pointed it out after Game 1 of the season. “We have high expectations as a team – and not just in terms of the results that we want to get as we go through this journey, but just how we conduct ourselves and how we perform.” If he can’t get those results, and his star players don’t respond, someone else will be taking over in an effort to get this team where it needs to be. He knows it and he doesn’t really have time to waste.

How Fragile Are Things in Toronto?

That Keefe felt the need to “clarify” such a harmless statement about his stars and one that should be clearly obvious to everyone (including the elite players on the team) is potentially an indictment of how fragile an operation the Leafs are running. That he said he’s really just trying to manage the media and he didn’t mean for it to appear like he was calling out his best players isn’t a great sign.

Frankly, if he needs to call them out, he should be calling them out. If he needs to get them to step up, he’s got to find ways to do so. If he can’t and is overly concerned about their feelings as the Leafs try to win, he’s probably not the person who should be behind the bench.

Next: Robertson In, Malgin Out in Maple Leafs’ Switcheroo