Sheldon Keefe reflects on 'average' first year away from Toronto Maple Leafs
Twelve months ago Friday, the Toronto Maple Leafs made one of the toughest decisions of their modern era when they parted ways with head coach Sheldon Keefe.
After four-and-a-half seasons on the job and five playoff runs with the team, the Leafs decided it was time for a new voice in the room on May 9, 2024.
“I’m forever grateful for the opportunity to coach the Toronto Maple Leafs,” Keefe said in a video posted to social media on the day he was fired. “I didn’t get it done in the playoffs. I accept responsibility for that.”
It didn’t take Keefe much time to find employment in the league, getting picked up by the New Jersey Devils less than two weeks after Toronto let him go.
But in his first year with the Devils, Keefe ran into a familiar fate, getting knocked out of the playoffs in the first round for the fifth time in six years, with New Jersey falling in five games to the Carolina Hurricanes.
“We showed an inability to sustain our game, and that’s the hardest thing to do in the league, is to sustain your game, year over year, throughout a season. To me, our foundation is in place to continue to build upon,” Keefe said in an exit interview with local media today. “Clearly, we have to continue to get better. We want to sustain our level of play year over year. And to me, we were unable to do that throughout our season.”
Finishing with 91 points on the season, Keefe’s Devils were tied with the Montreal Canadiens for the fewest point totals of any playoff team this season.
“When I reflect on it, my message to a lot of the guys is, there’s a foundation here now, but when I look at it, to me, we finished 16 out of 32 teams in the regular season. That’s average, and we’re not here to be average,” Keefe said. “We want to be better, and we will get better individually, collectively. Myself, as a coach, our players individually, we’ll have to continue to improve so we can get that level of sustainability that is required to compete in the league.”