Hutch was not Clutch

There are no excuses now, Hutchinson was rested, playing an afternoon affair( Normal for the AHL)
And he bombed out.
Micheal Hutchinson is a likeable guy who always shows up to the rink smiling and ready to work. It’s no surprise to hear his Toronto Maple Leafs teammates lobbied on his behalf to get a second crack at the backup goaltending job.
But after watching him let another opportunity slip by with another four-goal period against, Leafs management has to start considering the ugly side of the business.

They need to aggressively be looking for his replacement.
If it’s not Kasimir Kaskisuo, who was shelled in his first and only career NHL start at Pittsburgh earlier this month, then they need to find an external option. That comes with complications because of Toronto’s precarious salary-cap situation, but the alternative — doing nothing — could amount to something much worse.
It might end up costing them a playoff spot.


Here we are two months into the season and the Leafs have banked all of one point thanks to their No. 2 goaltender. They are one of two teams still searching for a win courtesy of the backup — Columbus has three loser points when Elvis Merzlikins plays — and with Hutchinson they’ve now had three games with a multi-goal lead turn into a loss.
He wasn’t horrible in Friday’s 6-4 defeat to the Buffalo Sabres, but he was outplayed by counterpart Linus Ullmark who stopped three breakaways at the other end of the ice. The Leafs simply needed one more save from Hutchinson — just as they did in his start at Chicago, his start at Washington and his start at home against Montreal on the first weekend of the season.
“I think there will be a lot of focus on Hutch, of course, but I mean there’s a lot more going on in the game than just that,” said head coach Sheldon Keefe.
“We haven’t been all-too-good for him all year,” said Auston Matthews. “You definitely feel for a guy like that, who comes in and gives it his all every game. We’ve just got to be better for him.”

Mike "the Sieve" Hutchinson

Hutchinson is not without blame even if turnovers and missed assignments gave the likes of Jack Eichel and Jeff Skinner great scoring opportunities at Key Bank Center.

There are troubling patterns developing here.
He’s made 14 NHL starts dating back to last season and posted a save percentage above .900 in just two of those games.
Among goaltenders with at least five appearances this year, he’s 61st of 62 with an .876 save percentage — and Cory Schneider (.852), the only guy worse, was recently demoted to the American Hockey League by New Jersey

Hutchinson is doing his best to keep a brave face amid the struggles, but acknowledges that he’s never had a stretch of play as concerning as this one.
“It’s one of those things where you think in 10 years pro you’ve gone through pretty much everything and then hockey throws something new at you,” he said.

“You can choose to dwell on it and have it kind of take over your life and be negative or miserable about it, or you can take it as a learning experience,” he added. “Go over and watch the video, see where I can improve to get my game back on track and just be positive and move forward. If you dwell on it too much, it’s a long season. It’s only November still so there’s a long way to go.”
The Leafs had hoped that giving Hutchinson the first game in a back-to-back would bring more success. But after building a 2-0 lead on goals from captain John Tavares in a matinee start on Black Friday, the Sabres pumped four shots by him inside a 14-minute stretch.
It was the third time this season he’s given up that many goals in a period and you’re simply not going to win games when that happens.

“For myself, it wasn’t the cleanest game – I was battling hard trying to find pucks – but that’s one of those things where the more you play, you just feel more comfortable,” said Hutchinson.
His time with the Leafs already appeared to be over under former head coach Mike Babcock when he cleared waivers on Nov. 12 and was assigned to the AHL.
He got another crack at the job when Keefe replaced Babcock behind the bench and surveyed his players this week for their opinion on the 29-year-old journeyman.

“To a man, they felt that he deserved another opportunity,” said Keefe.
 Freddie Andersen will start when the Leafs and Sabres complete a home-and-home series on Saturday and there should already be concerns about his workload. He’s currently on pace for 68 games this regular season and there were internal conversations before their back-to-back set with Boston and Pittsburgh earlier this month about playing him on both nights.


That didn’t end up happening, but it underscores how urgent the organization feels its situation is.
The Leafs have another set of back-to-back games coming up next week and they’re going to need someone other than Andersen to start getting wins after a 12-11-4 start.


Assuming it’s not Hutchinson or Kaskisuo, they have basically $800,000 to spend on the backup position with a fully healthy roster. The best potential option under that number is Pittsburgh’s Tristan Jarry, but general manager Jim Rutherford will drive a hard bargain in trade talks.

In order to bring in a more expensive option, Toronto would have to remove salary from the roster to make the accounting work.
With that in mind, you can understand why they want to make it work with Hutchinson. He’s a popular teammate and a salary-cap fit. But his goals against in successive starts now reads five, four, four, five, five and five.

His record is 0-5-1.
“It’s disappointing,” said Tavares. “We know how much he cares, how much [work] he’s put in all year. The opportunities we gave up are some pretty good opportunities to some pretty good players.

 “We just weren’t as good as we can be with the puck.”

And they weren’t quite good enough between the pipes either.

The new big bang theory - Leafs style

Sheldon working his magic

One week ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs were putting the finishing touches on a six-game losing streak, their tumultuous 2019-20 season in a full-on spiral.
Seven days later, Sheldon Keefe’s entered the fray to reinvigorate the young club.

The six-game slide’s been swapped for three straight wins, with Keefe’s Leafs posting eight goals during that pair of W’s after managing just nine over the previous four games.

Though far from fully redeemed, it seems the club’s taken to Keefe’s myriad roster and tactical shake-ups, and looks hungry to go on a run up the standings.
That being the case, let’s take a quick look at who on the roster has benefitted most from the team’s coaching swap thus far.

Obviously. If there’s one player whose two-game stretch has best encapsulated the Maple Leafs’ shift in thinking under Keefe, it’s Barrie.
Stumbling through a brutal opening quarter of the season that saw him put up just seven points — zero of which were goals — over the first 23 games, the skilful defender now has a goal in each of Keefe’s games behind the bench, adding an assist during the club’s latest win as well.
Barrie’s sudden success can be linked pretty clearly to the changes that the coach has made.

First off, the directive to Leafs defenders to push deep into the offensive zone and help facilitate the cycle game has given Barrie a much-needed green light to make the type of dashes to the cage we used to see from him in Colorado.
His first goal for Toronto came as a direct result of that strategic shift, with Barrie catching the opposition off-guard and cutting to the net.

 Tyson Barrie
A few other changes have helped the 28-year-old rediscover his offensive game as well — most notably getting some shifts with No. 1 defender Morgan Rielly at 5-on-5, and earning that long-awaited promotion to the top power-play unit.
The last note is key, as it’s shfited Barrie into the role in which he’s best-suited to contribute in Toronto — the former Avalanche defender posted the third-most power-play points among all NHL blue-liners over the past two seasons, yet got little opportunity to contribute in that role under head coach Mike Babcock.


Ilya Mikheyev
It’s been a wild rookie campaign already for 25-year-old Ilya Mikheyev.
While the young soup lover found some success within Babcock’s system as well — posting 12 points through 23 games while averaging 15:43 minutes per night — he’s seen his role increase exponentially under Keefe. One of the new coach’s most intriguing early moves, in fact, was the decision to bump Mikheyev up to John Tavares’ left wing, shifting longtime left-side staple Zach Hyman to No. 91’s right side.

Mikheyev’s responded, posting two assists and leading the club in shots (with seven) over the past two games as his ice-time his risen from that 15:43 average to 18:57 under Keefe.
Though the top-six assignment appears to be temporary, given the Hyman-Tavares-Mitch Marner trio established itself as a fairly dominant one in 2018-19, looking at the current setup, it’s Hyman, not Mikheyev, who currently occupies Marner’s spot on Tavares’ right wing.

With the new coach pushing a more skilful brand of Leafs hockey, and Hyman long being seen as the poster boy for Babcock’s preferred blue-collar style of play, it’s not inconceivable that the rookie could stick on that line with Tavares and Marner once the $10.893-million man returns to the lineup.
Even if he doesn’t, for the time being Mikheyev’s getting as good an opportunity as any to showcase his potential.

 Jason Spezza
Spezza's struggles to establish himself during Babcock’s reign in Toronto are well-documented.
The 17-year NHL veteran made it into just 13 games over the Maple Leafs’ first 23 tilts, scratched 10 times by Babcock after coming to the club as a veteran on the roster’s fringe. Injuries to centremen Tavares and Alex Kerfoot bumped Spezza into the third-line pivot role, seemingly only as a stopgap until the younger options got healthy. But Keefe’s elected to keep him there even with Kerfoot’s return, shifting the former Avs forward to the wing.

The biggest strategic shift from Keefe that should benefit Spezza is the decision to move away from emphasizing breakneck speed at all times, with the club now opting for a more patient, measured approach.
As seen in both of Toronto’s games under the new bench boss, Keefe has encouraged his players to hold onto the puck, utilize their skill, and focus on possession rather than simply pushing a frenetic pace — all of which would seem to mesh better with what Spezza brings to the table at this point in his career.

Justin Holl
As is the case whenever an AHL coach is promoted to the big club, the hidden gems from the minor-league level are dusted off and pushed into bigger roles.
Keefe’s greatest advantage in taking over this Leafs squad is the number of players on the roster he’s worked with previously during their Marlies tenures. Holl could be one such player who could see his role increase given Keefe’s familiarity with him — the 27-year-old spent three seasons working under the coach at AHL Toronto, and was given little opportunity to become an everyday NHLer during Babcock’s Toronto tenure.

Through two games back with Keefe, however, Holl’s been eating up a significant number of blue-line shifts — he’s earned 25 shifts at 5-on-5 in each of the past two games, that total ranking as the second-most on the team in Game 1 with Keefe at the helm, and the most on the team in Game 2. In the last five games of Babcock’s tenure, Holl’s place among the top shift-getters on the roster each night read like so: fifth, third, 11th, fifth, and 14th.
All in all, the blue-liner has led the Leafs in shifts per game over this brief two-game stretch, getting plenty of ice alongside veteran defensive partner Jake Muzzin.

Pierre Engvall
Engvall is another prime candidate to see his role increase due to his former AHL coach getting a promotion to the bigs.

The 23-year-old spent the past two seasons with Keefe in Marlies colors, and had 16 points through 15 games for him this season before both were brought up to the NHL at nearly the same time.
He’s already impressing as he gets a shot on the fourth-line with the Maple Leafs, posting a goal in Keefe’s debut against the Coyotes and an assist on Toronto’s first goal of the game vs. the Avalanche.
More importantly, he’s being thrown into the mix by Keefe in key situations — the Ljungby, Sweden, native has earned an opportunity on the penalty kill, and was sent over the boards in the final minutes against Colorado as Toronto tried to hold off a tying goal.
 With a number of capable forwards fighting for ice-time and a consistent spot in the lineup, the faith Keefe is showing in Engvall’s defensive game should serve the young winger well.

Micheal Hutchinson
If anyone on the Marlies roster was in need of a second chance, it’s Hutchinson.

The embattled backup netminder earned six games with the big club this season, and came up with wins in exactly zero of them, posting an .879 save percentage and a 4.44 goals-against average along the way.
All in all, little was made clear about Hutchinson in 2019-20 other than his seeming inability to survive as the Maple Leafs’ backup this season.
Through a few appearances in the AHL, however, Hutchinson’s offered a glimmer of hope — he put up a .942 save percentage and a 1.95 goals-against average in three games with AHL Toronto, earning wins in all three.
With Keefe moving from the Coca-Cola Coliseum to Scotiabank Arena, Hutchinson’s been called up once again. When exactly he’ll get back in the Maple Leafs’ net is unclear, but getting another shot at all is benefit enough for the 29-year-old.

Sheldon sorts through ideas

 Well, it's a theory anyway.

Keefe Changes

Because it happens so often these days, Auston Matthews’ goal-scoring has come to feel almost normal. (He added his 16th goal in 25 games over the weekend in Colorado.)

It’s not.




In fact, it doesn’t seem hyperbolic to conclude Matthews is the most potent scorer to enter the NHL since Alex Ovechkin.

Keefe’s changes

It was striking to see just how much change Sheldon Keefe immediately imposed in taking over the Leafs last week.


What seems notable to me is how many of those decisions contrast with the way Mike Babcock did things over four and a half seasons in Toronto.

• Zach Hyman to RW: Hyman lined up almost exclusively at left wing under Babcock and almost always with either Matthews or John Tavares. He spent a mere 97 minutes over the three previous seasons with the Leafs’ other top centre, Nazem Kadri. (It was 1,800-plus minutes with Matthews and more than 900 with Tavares.) It may be a temporary thing until Mitch Marner returns from a high ankle sprain next month, but still, it was no Babcock move. For a trip down memory lane, recall that Hyman made his NHL debut at right wing on a line centered by William Nylander with Michael Grabner at left wing. The Leafs’ “top” line that night: Kadri, Leo Komarov and Nikita Soshnikov.
• Jason Spezza in the third centre spot with other options available: Babcock would have preferred to not play Spezza at all, and he did just that, scratching him 10 times before he was let go. He relented to having Spezza in the third centre hole only when he had no other choice and injuries to Tavares and Alex Kerfoot forced his hand. Keefe chose to put Spezza there with Kerfoot healthy. We shall see if that continues — Spezza played under nine minutes against the Avalanche, including only two shifts in the third period — but it was a striking shift in deployment.
• Kerfoot to left wing: There was some thought after the July 1 trade that sent Kerfoot and Tyson Barrie to Toronto for Kadri and Calle Rosen that Kerfoot might bounce around and play some on the wing as he did with the Avalanche. Aside from a period or two when Kerfoot landed on the Tavares line, Kerfoot was locked into the third-centre role under Babcock, who was a growing fan of the 25-year-old’s unexpected “grease.” Kerfoot has spent the first two games on the wing under Keefe, including some brief spins with Matthews.
• Nick Shore scratched: Babcock played around with the fourth line in the early going before settling on Shore, Frederik Gauthier and a rotating left wing. Shore had played in every game since Oct. 10 until he was scratched in Keefe’s debut for the more skilled Nic Petan. Then, in very non-Babcock fashion, Keefe went all sentimental, returning Shore to the lineup in Colorado. Why? Because Shore is from Denver and played at the University of Denver. Shore rewarded him with his second goal of the season.
• Barrie and Morgan Rielly: Babcock usually got the two together only when the Leafs were trailing late in games and needed a goal. Keefe has started them together on the opening shift in each of his first two games.
• Andreas Johnsson on the PK: The extent of Johnson's penalty-killing over his first 82 games: 7:29. Or nothing, essentially. Johnsson killed penalties under Keefe with the Marlies, though, and played 43 seconds on the unit in Keefe’s debut and another 27 seconds on Saturday. Babcock preferred to box most players onto either special teams unit; rare were those doing both. Keefe looks like he’ll be less constrictive. He’s used 11 players on the PK in his first two games, adding Johnsson, Travis Dermott and Pierre Engvall to the mix. Marner and Trevor Moore should join that bunch once they’re healthy.
• Barrie to the top PP: That one paid off right away, with Barrie popping his first power-play goal of the year on his very shift with the top unit. What’ll be interesting is how Keefe and assistant coach Paul McFarland assemble the two units once Marner returns. Do they simply return Nylander to the second unit in favour of Marner? Do they bounce Rielly instead? Will they jettison Barrie? One comment from Keefe after the 5-3 win in Colorado, in regards to calling a timeout to get the top power-play unit on the ice, seemed revealing. “In particular, with our team and the way it is, we have elite talent, so the more we can utilize them when their energy level is good, we’re going to do it,” he said. “We’re going to take advantage of that.”

There’s still so much to learn about Keefe, obviously. Obviously.

Other subjects of curiosity regarding the new Leafs coach include the goaltending decisions; will Frederik Andersen’s workload be reduced? Will ice-time for Matthews and Tavares, who logged a season-high 22:31 on Saturday, go up? How much mixing and matching will we see?
Will Marner automatically return to Tavares’ right wing once he’s healthy?

Will Spezza keep his spot once everyone is healthy? Why not?


Keefe appears to have already abandoned the idea of having Gauthier-led fourth lines line up for all the defensive zone draws. Matthews, who lined up for 10 defensive zone draws in Denver, has a 46 percent offensive-zone start percentage in two games under Keefe after humming around 70 percent in the first 23 games under Babcock.

Also noteworthy: Keefe trusting his old (but still young!) Marlies players at key spots. Take Engvall, who was on the ice with less than three minutes left Saturday with the Leafs protecting a one-goal lead. However it is always safe to teach a player responsibility.

 It was his third NHL game. It’s safe to say he wouldn’t have been out there if Babcock was still coaching.

Leafs shovel past Avalanche

Tyson Barrie said he wasn’t sure how he’d feel. Coming back to play in the only professional home he had ever known before a summer trade to the Maple Leafs, the Avalanche’s top-scoring defenceman of all time said he was expecting to feel something in his first game as a visitor at the Pepsi Center.

“I don’t know if I’ll get emotional or just be happy, or what,” said Barrie.

Without presuming too much, it’s safe to assume Barrie was over the moon about his Saturday night reunion with the franchise that drafted him. And the same goes for his road-tripping teammates on the Leafs, who beat the Avalanche 5-3 to register their second straight win since Sheldon Keefe replaced Mike Babcock as head coach Wednesday.

Hanging their heads through the six-game losing streak that ended Babcock’s tenure, they transformed themselves into a swaggering, smiling scoring machine on Saturday — albeit for approximately eight brilliant minutes of the first period, when they scored four goals and chased Philipp Grubauer, who was relieved by Pavel Francouz.

Typical avalanche

Beyond that flurry, there was plenty that wasn’t perfect — say, most of the final two periods. There was, at times, a lot that was reminiscent of the Babcock era, including long stretches with the Leafs hemmed in their end as the Avalanche threatened. The final 2:37 of regulation, with the Colorado goaltender out and the Leafs up 4-3 and gasping for air as the Avalanche piled on the pressure, was a bullet dodged. Zach Hyman’s empty-net goal at the buzzer punctuated the victory.

But Barrie’s best moment was a high point. He scored his second goal in as many games by using his promotion to Toronto’s first power-play unit remarkably efficiently. It took just 22 seconds into Toronto’s first-period man advantage for Barrie to one-time a puck past Philipp Grubauer. Toronto’s special teams haven’t shown that kind of authoritative oomph very often this season.

“I’m over there to be a shooter,” Barrie said before the game, speaking of his new position on the power play’s left flank. “We’ve got a lot of guys who have a lot of patience and move the puck well. So I’m going to try and be an option and take shots when they’re available.”

Barrie’s goal was one of a quartet of unanswered first-period markers. The visitors got down 1-0 after Frederik Andersen whiffed on a long Nathan MacKinnon shot 31 seconds into the proceedings. But after a sluggish start, the Leafs found steam. 

As for sustaining that steam, the Leafs were outshot 13-3 in the second period, when all the aggressive playmaking of the first period’s latter half gave away to a passive defensive shell. By the midpoint of the third period, with the Maple Leafs in full retreat, it was 4-3. 

But the Leafs hung on. 

And on a night when Barrie received a lengthy video tribute, after which the bulk of the crowd offered a short standing ovation, the Maple Leafs defenceman and the rest of his rejuvenated team left happy.

“Not that there’s any ill will with this team. But in front of all the familiar faces, it’s nice to get one,” Barrie said. “It’s been a great day. Kind of everything I could hope for.”

 Barrie wasn’t the only Leaf making a homecoming of sorts. Fourth-line winger Nick Shore, a healthy scratch in Thursday’s win in Arizona, replaced Nic Petan in the lineup because Keefe said it was important for Shore, a Denver native, to play in front of family and friends. Shore responded with Toronto’s first goal, banging in a great pass from Pierre Engvall.

Nazem Kadri, who assisted on two goals in his first game against his old team, hit a second-period post after a nifty bit of dangling set him free in front. Auston Matthews scored his second road goal in as many games, after having one in his previous 10. “Kind of an ugly one for us tonight,” he said. “But a really important two points.

Tyson gets hand shakes all round

 ” The Leafs didn’t register their first shot on goal until the game was more than six minutes old. Barrie said he heard from opponents over the years that Denver’s mile-high altitude can be “murder” on the visitors’ wind. It certainly took time for Toronto to find theirs. Toronto was outshot 29-12 in the final two periods. Keefe said the Leafs, four games into a road trip, “looked like a tired team out there.”

 But the coach said he was impressed with his team’s resilience. So was I . They hung on, and prevailed. Next stop Motown Wednesday night.

Let's hope they can bring their A game at game time.

I want to Be Leaf

Marner and his crew

If Mike Babcock said it once, he said it a thousand times.

“Play fast.”

During Babcock’s four-plus seasons as Maple Leafs coach it was one of the foundational mantras of the organization. And as much as it made sense to some outsiders — this was a team built on speed and skill, after all, so playing “fast” only seemed to follow — to many of the speediest and most skilled denizens of Toronto’s dressing room Babcock’s urgings to “play fast” were always met with misgivings. To those players, it was shorthand for a style that didn’t particularly suit the roster as built by general manager Kyle Dubas. “Play fast,” as interpreted by more than a few Leafs who matter, often led to a chip-and-chase grind game at which the team only occasionally excelled. “Play fast,” too often, was a slightly more sophisticated variation on “pucks in deep.” Which is why, under Babcock, puck retrieval was such a prized skill, and why a forechecking savant such as Zach Hyman was so cherished by the coach, who was fired on Wednesday.

But what’s becoming clear in the opening days of Sheldon Keefe’s tenure as head coach is that playing fast is a thing of the past. Don’t get it wrong. Speed and skill will still be the keystones of the operation. These guys certainly aren’t winning with hard-hitting heaviness. And the ability to retrieve loose pucks will still be a valued commodity, because hockey’s a game of unpredictable bounces that requires resilient adaptation to random situations. So Hyman, though he might not be the new coach’s very favourite player, isn’t going anywhere. 

Captain John

But the core principles being emphasized by Keefe, as the rookie coach held his first full practice at the University of Denver’s Joy Burns Arena in advance of Saturday’s game against the Avalanche, are clearly different than the ones incessantly pushed by Babcock. What’s the biggest discrepancy? Players are always reluctant to make comparisons so soon after a firing. But suffice it to say that if Babcock wanted the team to play fast, the post-Babcock Leafs are being encouraged to play with patience and control. Call it slow hockey with fast players, and fast thinkers.

On Friday, Keefe described the philosophy as “trying to be a little more purposeful” with the puck. Auston Matthews, the team’s leading scorer and forever a Babcock skeptic, said the newly installed concept amounts to “not rushing plays when we have the puck, especially in the neutral zone.

“It’s having more patience,” Matthews said. 

Kapanen looming

Which is not to say it’ll always be as seamless as it looked in Thursday’s 3-1 win over the Arizona Coyotes, wherein Toronto’s players clearly took pleasure in dancing on Babcock’s professional tombstone. To be fair to the Leafs who clearly found glee in Babcock’s ouster, four-plus years of any coach can be too much. As for four-plus years of Babcock’s repetitive shtick — “redneck authenticity” is what the two-time Olympic gold medallist once called it, as though it were a saleable product — nobody who works for the club will tell you Babcock’s act wasn’t at times tiresome. Mike Babcock, when he wasn’t betting on Mike Babcock, was about Mike Babcock. It’s entertaining until it’s not.

Which is not to say Keefe won’t soon experience more trying times than the honeymoon of a 1-0 NHL coaching record. And certainly they’ll face serious opposition on Saturday, when 10-year Maple Leaf Nazem Kadri takes a shot at exacting revenge for the summertime trade that sent him to Colorado against his will, a deal that brought Tyson Barrie and Alex Kerfoot to Leafland.

“(Kadri is) kind of in your face, and I’m sure this is the game he’s had circled on his calendar for a long time,” Matthews said. “You always know what to expect when you go up against him.”

You know what to expect, or you don’t. On Friday, mind you, the Leafs were very much focused on what to expect from each other. One of the linchpins of Keefe’s system, after all, is five-man co-operation in every aspect of the game, from advancing up the ice to retreating through the middle on defence.

“Everyone has to be on the same page to support one another, especially through the neutral zone,” Matthews said. “I think everybody knows how hard it is to get through the neutral zone in the NHL.”

Auston awaiting the face off

If any Leaf knows how hard it is to get into an NHL lineup at age 36, it’s Jason Spezza. Scratched by Babcock on opening night, never mind that he’s a GTA guy who took less to sign with the Leafs, suddenly he finds himself a valued commodity in the Keefe era. If a play-fast, straight-line game doesn’t suit a guy who’s not as fleet as the average 20-something, Keefe’s new push to be purposeful and patient speaks to why Dubas signed Spezza in the summer.

“He has a skill set that fits the way that we want to play, so that I think sets him up for success,” Keefe said Friday.

If Dubas and Babcock never found “simpatico,” to use Dubas’s word, Spezza and Keefe seem like kindred spirits. Years ago they played against one another in the OHL during Keefe’s long-ago days as a wayward junior. Spezza joked on Friday that those years “will not be spoken about,” perhaps out of respect to a coach who is now Spezza’s lifeline to extending a career that, under Babcock, looked to have hit a dead end.

Playing Keefe’s style of game, Spezza said, “feels natural to me.” If Babcock wanted the team to dump the puck and chase, Keefe wants them to keep it and improvise, albeit with caveats and with purpose and with defensive responsibility always in mind. For a roster filled with expert practitioners of a lifetime of skill work, Keefe is speaking in what amounts to a love language. It’s a honeymoon, indeed.

Tyson Barrie

Said Tyson Barrie, the offensive-minded defenceman who was traded from Colorado in the summer: “It’s an exciting time to be a Leaf.”

Leafs prevail in Arizona

Tyson Barrie and rookie Pierre Engvall came through to help new Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe get a win in his NHL coaching debut.

Barrie scored his first goal of the season, Engvall got the first of his career and the Maple Leafs snapped a six-game losing streak with a 3-1 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night.

"Pretty special night for a lot of guys here," said Toronto's Auston Matthews, who also scored back in his hometown. "And a big two points with everything that's been going on the past couple of weeks and the past 36 hours."

Frederik Andersen stopped 30 shots to help the Maple Leafs end an 0-5-1 skid one day after Keefe replaced the fired Mike Babcock.

"The guys went out and played with confidence," Keefe said. "We had to find our way through the first period. I thought we had really good energy on the bench."

Not everything was perfect in his first game behind the bench in the NHL, though.

"I was a little behind on making my line changes," said Keefe, who was in his fifth season as coach of the AHL's Toronto Marlies when he was promoted. "I'd like to speed that up a bit. But the players took care of me well there."

Some Maple Leafs players saw the coaching change as a chance for a new start.

"He came in with a really fresh attitude," Barrie said. "We know we weren't meeting expectations and we need to be better."

Vinnie Hinostraza scored with 17 seconds left for Arizona to spoil Andersen's shutout bid.  Darcy Keumper finished with 29 saves. The Coyotes had won four of their previous five games.

"Too many mistakes and we didn't really defend good enough," Arizona's Oliver Ekman-Larsson said..

Barrie got the scoring started with 46 seconds left in the first period, beating Kuemper under the right glove after coming down the right side from the point with open ice.

"I think I did a good job jumping in on the pass and that's what I'm accustomed to," Barrie said.

The Coyotes had trouble generating offense, as the Maple Leafs dominated the puck. Andersen was forced to make a glove save midway through the first on Carl Soderberg, and made a clean save of Jason Demers' shot on a break in the second off a feed from Phil Kessel

Engvall scored short-handed after breaking up a point-to-point pass and beating Kuemper under his left leg with his left-handed shot with 3:11 remaining in the second.

Matthews made it 3-0 as he skated far side and beat Kuemper between the legs 48 seconds into the third period.

"With everything that (Keefe) threw at us in a short period of time that he'd like to see I thought we executed that for the most part," Matthews said.

NOTES: Toronto had allowed the first goal in its previous seven games. ... The Maple Leafs hadn't led in regulation in its previous eight games, since a 3-1 win against Los Angeles on Nov. 5. They trailed 1-0 against Vegas two nights later before rallying to win 2-1 in overtime in their last victory before their skid. ... The Coyotes lost for just the fifth time in 19 games (14-4-1).

Sheldon Keefe gets his first NHL win as a head coach, and lets hope there are more wins ahead.

And thank you Mike, for all you have done for this franchise.

Babcock out

The Toronto Maple Leafs have fired head coach Mike Babcock and replaced him with Sheldon Keefe.
Babcock had a record of 9-10-4 in 2019-20 for the struggling Leafs, who are 0-5-1 in their last six games, including five straight losses in regulation.

Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan flew to Arizona on Wednesday to break the news to Babcock along with general manager Kyle Dubas. Shanahan said that he felt he should be present as he hired Babcock in the spring of 2015.
"It wasn't an easy conversation to have and it wasn't pleasant, days like today are not," Shanahan said in Scottsdale, Arizona. "But it was what we felt was important for the club. Once you realize there's something you should do, and have to do, then it's best to act on it."

 Toronto, two points out of the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, fell 4-2 to the Golden Knights in Vegas on Tuesday night. Babcock's last win for the Leafs, on Nov. 7 against Vegas, was the 700th of his NHL career. He has a career record of 700-418-19 with Toronto, Detroit and Anaheim.
Hired as part of a massive rebuild, the 56-year-old Babcock went 173-133-45 in his four-plus seasons with Toronto. He joined the Maple Leafs with an impressive resume, having won the Stanley Cup with Detroit in 2008 and back-to-back Olympic gold medals with Canada in 2010 and 2014.
After signing the richest coaching contract in NHL history at US$50 million over eight years, Babcock got Toronto to the playoffs the last three seasons, but was unable to advance beyond the first round.
The 39-year-old Keefe, who has a long history with Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas, was in his fifth season as head coach of the American Hockey League's Toronto Marlies. Keefe was 199-89-31 with the Marlies and helped secure the franchise's first Calder Cup championship in 2018.
"Our relationship has grown," Keefe said about Dubas in May. "He really opened my eyes to how much there is to learn and how to look at things a little bit differently."
Toronto's last four in-season coach firings — Pat Burns, Ron Wilson, Randy Carlyle and now Babcock — all took place with the team on the road.

The Maple Leafs are set to take on Coyotes on Thursday night. Shanahan, Dubas and Keefe were all scheduled to speak with the media Thursday morning.

Babcock's Leafs stumbled this season despite a star-studded forward group led by Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, a defense corps headlined by Morgan Rielly, Tyson Barrie and Jake Muzzin, and goalie Frederik Andersen.
Toronto was unable to find traction after a summer of change that saw a number of Babcock's trusted veterans leave town as part of a salary cap crunch precipitated by big-money contract extensions handed to Matthews and Marner.
In fact, Toronto's Big 4 forwards chewed up nearly half of the $81.5-million cap, leaving Dubas to try and fill in the roster around the edges with young players and discount veterans.

"Our game is not really meeting our expectations," Shanahan said. "We're mistake-prone on defence, the attention to details aren't there, and even the explosive offence that our team was known for has been missing for a while now, so there's a lot of work for Sheldon to do and there's a lot of work for the players to do."
The young Leafs surprised many by making the playoffs in 2016-17 before falling to the Washington Capitals in six games. Babcock was unable to get Toronto past the Boston Bruins the last two springs, losing both series in seven games.
The 2019 series was especially frustrating given that the Leafs led 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2 with a chance to close things out at home in Game 6 before the Bruins fought back to win two straight.


While there's no questioning Babcock's track record, there seemed to be a disconnect between the coach and GM in terms of roster construction and style of play after Dubas took over the top job from Lou Lamoriello in May 2018.
Driving by data and analytics, Dubas focused on skill and speed — basically trying to win with four first lines — rather than the grinding type of player Babcock had previously preferred in his bottom-6 forward group.
Toronto's lack of attention to detail in the defensive zone the last two seasons and sub-par specialty teams were both troubling aspects Babcock was unable to rectify, even after changing assistant coaches this season.


Backup goalie was also a constant headache after the Leafs lost veteran Curtis McElhinney on waivers before the start of the 2018-19 campaign. Garret Sparks never gained Babcock's trust, while Michael Hutchinson secured just one point in five starts before getting demoted to the AHL.
Before the season, Dubas was asked about his relationship with Babcock, who was heavily criticized for his deployment of Matthews in Game 7 of Toronto's first-round playoff exit last spring.

"We talk a lot," Dubas said at the start of training camp. "We disagree, as any coach and GM do a lot. We agree on a lot of things and we work through it all. The key is, on areas that you disagree, that you respect one another and you work through all that."
"We communicate all the time," Babcock added in September. "We don't agree all the time. I've enjoyed it. We're excited about our opportunity."

Babcock also knew he'd be on the hot seat if things went sideways.
"I do, for sure," Babcock said. "The expectation each and every year should be greater than the previous year if you're going in the right direction."

So very sorry Mike, I know you were the right coach for this team, unfortunately the team was not the right one for you.

Okay Sheldon, you're up.