CALGARY — The season is half over, the Toronto Maple Leafs have lost half their games, and Sheldon Keefe only has half the answers.
The head coach humbly admitted — in the sober aftermath of his club’s fourth consecutive blown-lead loss — that the staff is still unsure which players can be trusted to lock down a close game that was once under their control.
Who on this roster can grip the cliff when their palms start to sweat?
“Who are we going to rely on in those moments? Who’s going to go out and get the job done?” Keefe wondered Wednesday in the bowels of Scotiabank Saddledome.
“Forty-two games in, I still have a lot of questions, quite honestly, about who is going to go out and you can say for certain is going to get the job done for us.”
Five of the Maple Leafs’ most recent seven losses have come when holding a multi-goal lead. They are staring at a relentless schedule crowded with playoff-hunting opponents and find themselves flirting with wild-card status.
Fans are getting accustomed to watching third periods through the cracks between their fingers.
And while some prominent outside voices — P.K. Subban and Kris Versteeg among them — have joined @WillyStylzBot69 in calling for the coach’s head and betting on a dead-cat bounce, the Leafs’ flaws go beyond coaching.
The troubles are complicated by roster construction, a culture with a clear hierarchy enforced by lopsided salaries and shift shares, and this most recent bout of mental fragility in the most critical minutes of the full 60.
Keefe is trying to multitask his way to job security and standings stability.
At once, he wants to hold his talented players to task, to keep them accountable, but also support them and juice their confidence so they can deliver late.
He sandwiches criticism inside praise.
“As much as things are intense and pressure rises in those critical moments, it’s still the same game they played in the early periods to get those leads and be in control,” Keefe said.
“It’s there. It’s in us. It’s on me to continually remind them about that — but push them at the same time to find their way through this.”
To that end, and in lieu of practice, Keefe and his staff held a “lengthy” meeting with all players Wednesday morning inside the club’s Calgary hotel before he joined the scratches for an on-ice workout.
Keefe & Co. focused on positive video clips, showing instances from the Oilers loss where they were in control defensively and transitioned quickly to offence. They stressed how few goals and Grade-A chances they’ve given up over the past 10-game stretch.
During that sit-down, the coach said he “very bluntly” challenged his players to raise their execution level while also reconnecting them to their past identity as an “elite regular-season team, one that hummed along at a 100-points-or-better pace in five of the past six campaigns.”
Keefe reminded his core of the mental toughness and perseverance it flexed during last spring’s playoff series victory over Tampa Bay, and he spoke to the new guys — hired help such as Tyler Bertuzzi (six goals) and Max Domi (four goals) — about the importance of embracing unfamiliar roles and earning trust.
Keefe is asking for increased offence — “Put the dagger in the opposition when you have a chance,” he says — and a more dialed-in defence when the heat gets cranked, and the opposition is pressing hard.
During a 12-minute, coach-only availability with a handful of reporters, Keefe dared his players to dig deeper and protect the net at all costs when fatigue creeps in.
“We’ve had times to close it out, and we haven’t done so. That has shown our inconsistency in those big moments. It’s not a reflection of where our team is at, I don’t think,” he said. “We haven’t gotten it done at those times.”
Keefe offered candid but careful criticism on a couple of struggling veterans.
On the overtaxed T.J. Brodie: “Defensively he’s given up more and hasn’t been as consistent as we’ve come to rely upon. I don’t know if he’s had many easy nights in terms of matchups.”
On John Tavares and the captain’s five-game point drought: “I see a little bit of fatigue going on with John, too. To me, he doesn’t seem to have the same pop, the same jump that he’s had. And maybe that’s a symptom of our schedule.”
But he qualified any commentary that could be perceived as negative by expressing belief that his players will snap out of this.
Big picture, Keefe is facing an ice time quandary.
He recognizes, for the greater good, the Leafs need more out of their bottom six and depth defencemen. Yet they also need wins, so the coach keeps going back to the core when the going gets tough.
That ice-time imbalance can get exacerbated on the road against quality opposition, when Keefe doesn’t have the benefit of last change.
Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner are all averaging well over 20 minutes a night. Tavares is at 18:18. No other forward averages 16 minutes. Domi is under 13.
On the back end, Morgan Rielly (24:26) and Brodie (21:44) are easily the busiest of the bunch.
If Toronto’s top players are losing steam toward the end of games in January, how much will be in the tank come May?
“It’s a challenge,” Keefe said. “You’re trying to build trust and opportunity for those other guys.”
So, which comes first: Faith or opportunity?
“That is me trusting our whole lineup, but at the same time we need some individuals to really step up and show that: I can be out here at this moment. You can rely upon me. I don’t know that we’re there yet, but I believe we will get there,” Keefe said.
“Tomorrow night is another opportunity for us to get it right.”
