3 Coaches Poised to Lose Jobs After Round One Losses

Sheldon Keefe, Toronto Maple Leafs

Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe needs to go. He has been the man in Toronto since former coach Mike Babcock was let go in the early portion of the 2019-2020 season. Since then, the Leafs have grown as a regular season team but remained stagnant in the postseason.

This most recent campaign brought the franchise’s fifth consecutive win-or-go-home loss in Round One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

His Maple Leafs had two chances to eliminate the back-to-back champions, but after an overtime win in Game 6, the Tampa Bay Lightning were not going to be stopped.

It’s no secret that the star power is there for Toronto, and in my opinion, the team has solid depth, despite the amount of money that is tied up in only a handful of players. It is for that reason that I see Keefe as the necessary piece to replace.

This Maple Leafs team is still young and has little experience when it comes to winning in the playoffs. Keefe falls in that same category, as he had not been an NHL head coach prior to being hired by Toronto.

Yes, his regular season record is strong. In two and a half seasons, he has compiled a 116-50-19 mark, but that no longer matters in Ontario. What matters is getting over the hump in the postseason, and he has not proven that he can help the Leafs do that.

This year’s playoff series was an improvement (remember all of that respect in the handshake line?), but postseason losses to the Columbus Blue Jackets (2020) and Montreal Canadiens (2021) prove that he is not the right man to get the Maple Leafs to the promised land.