Leafs’ Sheldon Keefe still grinding, looking for solutions during break

Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe joins Hockey Central to discuss how often he's communicating with his players during the NHL pause, and how they're dealing with the challenge and uncertainty of when they're going to play next.

TORONTO — Don’t go to Sheldon Keefe for an opinion on Carole Baskin or Joe Exotic. You won’t find him taking advantage of a paused NHL season to catch up on “Ozark” or “Homeland,” either.

As much as everything has changed amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the life of at least one NHL head coach is still pretty similar to what came before it.

“I’m doing a lot of binging on the Toronto Maple Leafs currently,” Keefe said Tuesday on a conference call. “That’s taking up a lot of my time.”

The 39-year-old doesn’t even have a Netflix account.

When Keefe first started hearing people talk about “Tiger King” he figured it was a documentary about Tiger Woods, which is something that would hold appeal for him. As for what that series actually entails?

No chance.

“I don’t know if I’m proud or embarrassed about the fact that I don’t have a Netflix account,” said Keefe. “It seems like a rabbit hole of entertainment that I don’t necessarily know that I need to get down.”

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That would first require him to exit the 24/7 rabbit hole most coaches already find themselves in, and it doesn’t sound like that’s happened so far. Even here, some four weeks since Toronto’s last game and at least two months before its next one, Keefe is still grinding away looking for solutions.

He and the coaching staff are tackling some undisclosed projects and keeping in touch through a series of conference calls. While the task of maintaining regular contact with players largely falls to other members of the organization, the coaches hope to set an example with their commitment and work ethic during an unusual time.

“The circumstances are difficult for everybody in the world but we have a responsibility here — our season is not complete — and we have to take advantage of every day that we have to work towards being better versions of ourselves whenever we do get back to playing,” said Keefe.

The Leafs made some strides after Keefe replaced Mike Babcock on Nov. 20, compiling the eighth-best points percentage (.628) to climb into a playoff position while generating 52.73 per cent of the expected goals — the fifth-best total among NHL teams.

But they were also puzzlingly inconsistent.

Kyle Dubas referred to his group as “Jekyll and Hyde” when he met reporters following the Feb. 24 trade deadline and Keefe called them out after a couple tough losses, branding their performances as “immature” in the process.

“We didn’t necessarily say that our team was immature, I think that we played immature. I think they’re two different things,” Keefe said Tuesday. “We’ve shown at times that we can play very well against the best teams in the league and get great results from that, so it’s a matter of us finding that more consistently.

“You can attach whatever description you want to it, but the reality is that we need to take steps, both as a team and individually, and right now when we’re not playing it’s a chance for us to reset.”

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When the Leafs return — be it this summer to complete the 2019-20 season or next fall — he will be demanding more consistency in preparation and effort. That trumps even stylistic or systematic adjustments he’d like to see be made.

Keefe wants to establish it as a foundational hallmark that wasn’t always present during a campaign where Toronto sat at 36-25-9 when play was halted on March 12.

His players recognize the need for it, too.

“I think we were a little bit in an up-and-down kind of roller-coaster ride there for the last couple weeks, so I think this is a good time for us just to settle down and realize that we had the potential and the team that could do some great things,” Mitch Marner said Monday.

“It’s important that we use this down time to really take a look in the mirror,” Morgan Rielly said last week. “As players, we all have to be better. If you look at the ups and the downs, that’s obviously not how you want your year to be described.”

The one indulgence this pause has afforded Keefe is the chance to catch up on some movie watching. Among his recent favourites are “Ford vs. Ferrari” and “A Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood.”

He’d often take a trip to the theatre between the morning skate and puck drop during his time in the American Hockey League with the Marlies, but had to abandon that routine after getting his Leafs promotion because of the increased demands with the new job.

In fact, if there’s been a specific aspect of Keefe’s new position where he’s done some self-reflection over the last few weeks, it’s how he allocates and manages his time.

And he’s made sure to savour the extra hours this unexpected break has given him with wife Jackie and sons Landon and Wyatt.

“My Grade 4 math skills are improving daily, so that’s the kind of stuff we’ve been working at,” said Keefe. “Playing a lot of board games with the family and trying to get out and move around and get some walks in with the family.

“All that kind of stuff is taking up the time.”

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