Leafs fans clamoring for Barry Trotz, but a quick comparison reveals how much stronger Keefe's start has been
During his media availability on Tuesday's locker room cleanout day, Leafs GM Kyle Dubas spoke about his belief in Sheldon Keefe as a head coach and shut down the idea of pursuing Stanley Cup winner Barry Trotz when asked, stating that we could very well be talking about Keefe in the same light as guys like Trotz and some of the other reputable names out there. That's pretty high praise and, while it doesn't sound too likely to some, a quick look into the numbers might indicate that Keefe is off to a pretty darn good start.
Keeping in mind that Sheldon Keefe was brought in mid-season during a pandemic, coached the team for two COVID-shortened seasons and a makeshift all-Canadian division, I think he's done pretty well for himself. Keefe has just one full 82-game season to his credit, and he broke the all-time franchise records for wins (54) and points (115) in a single season in his first crack at it.
The Brampton, ON native is in arguably the biggest NHL market, certainly the biggest in Canada, and he's under the biggest microscope that there is. Even with that, he's still managed to coach the team to a 116-50-19 record in 185 games behind an NHL bench. He has yet to finish lower than third in his division and has not posted a points percentage lower than .628%. Simply put, for a young coach, it doesn't get much better than that.
Where Keefe has struggled most is during the postseason. He's still very much learning the tricks of the trade and focusing on trying to get the best matchups and make the right tweaks to his lineup, but he has shown improvements year over year, so he's certainly trending in the right direction. So why all the love for Barry Trotz from the Leafs fanbase? The year that he won the Stanley Cup with the Washington Capitals, he posted just a .640 points percentage in the regular season. For reference, Keefe posted a .701 this season in a massively top-heavy Atlantic Division.
Also, if we're comparing them at the start of their careers, Keefe has a leg up. Trotz became the head coach of the Nashville Predators in 1998-99. He did not qualify for the playoffs in any of his first 5 seasons in Nashville. Ok, yes. I know that they were an expansion team and I know that it takes time to build a competitive team. It often takes at least 3 years to begin seeing the fruits of your labour on the draft floor, so Trotz definitely gets a pass for those. He also gets a pass for being a rookie coach hired out of the AHL, who had just 5 years of experience there before being called up to the big leagues. Sound familiar? Well, that's the same path Keefe took.
Both Keefe and Trotz won AHL Championships, Trotz in his 2nd year with the then Portland Pirates, and Keefe in his 3rd year with the Toronto Marlies. They also each went on long runs in the AHL after winning a Championship as well, with Trotz losing in the Finals in 1995-96 and with Keefe taking the Leafs to the 3rd round in 2018-19.
If we're giving Trotz a pass for his first 5 seasons, obviously, we're going to see a drastic improvement in his next 5 seasons, right? Wrong. Trotz and the Preds were eliminated in the 1st round in his next 4 consecutive seasons and did not qualify for the playoffs in the 5th season.
The point in all of this is that if we're viewing Barry Trotz as the answer in Toronto, it took him 19 years to win a Stanley Cup, and after all of the work that he put in in Nashville, that wasn't even the team that he led to the Cup. He did so with the Washington Capitals in 2018. There's no guarantees in hockey. It's one of the hardest leagues to win a Championship in. The margin for error is so small and there's a lot of luck involved. The best team doesn't always win, or even go deep in the playoffs. This isn't to say that the Leafs should wait 19 years for Keefe to lead them to a Stanley Cup either. This is just a way of saying that when a young coach gets off to a red hot start, it's probably not the best time to can him for a guy who may not necessarily even be a fit for this team the way it's constructed.
Sheldon Keefe has done nothing but improve during his time in Toronto and has shown improvements year after year in the postseason as well. The signs are pointing towards Keefe being a very good coach and the players reportedly want to play for him. There were already rumours that Trotz was replaced because of a rift with a star player in Mat Barzal. Now, whether or not there's any truth to that, we may never know. What I do know is that the Leafs just put together one of the strongest seasons maybe in franchise history. Certainly from a wins and points perspective. Had they not drawn the Tampa Bay Lightning in round one, who knows how far they would have gone? If the Boston Bruins did enough to pass the Tampa Bay Lightning at the end of the season, maybe we're watching the Lightning/Leafs series in the Eastern Conference Finals instead of the 1st round.
We shouldn't be so quick to want to drop Sheldon Keefe. After just one full season, he's shown us that he can get the most out of his players. In any other season, the year the Leafs had might be good enough to win the Presidents Trophy. It just so happened that this year was one where many teams at the top of the standings were excellent. Keefe deserves our full support because, quite frankly, he's off to a really strong start in his NHL career.
| POLL | ||
MAI 18 | 476 ANSWERS Leafs fans clamoring for Barry Trotz, but a quick comparison reveals how much stronger Keefe's start has been Are the Leafs right to stick with Sheldon Keefe and pass on Barry Trotz? | ||
| Absolutely | 327 | 68.7 % |
| No, Trotz is better | 86 | 18.1 % |
| I'm good either way | 63 | 13.2 % |
| List of polls | ||
