The Toronto Maple Leafs have fired head coach Sheldon Keefe, the team announced Thursday.
“The organization will immediately begin the search for a new head coach,” the team said in a statement.
In a video released on X, formerly Twitter, Keefe said he will be forever grateful for the opportunity to coach the Leafs.
“It’s a dream come true for a boy from Brampton,” he said.
Keefe’s Maple Leafs performed well in the regular season, with a 212-97-40 record in 349 games.
The team recorded three consecutive 100-point seasons with Keefe behind the bench, including a team-record 115-point season in 2021-22.
The Leafs routinely came up short in the playoffs with Keefe at the helm however, sporting a single playoff round win against the Tampa Bay Lightning last season, and a 16-21 postseason record overall. After an up and down season in 2023-24, Toronto lost to the Boston Bruins in a series-deciding seventh game last weekend.
Despite finally getting the organization over a painful playoff hump last spring when the Leafs advanced to the second round for the first time in nearly two decades, Keefe was unable to keep that momentum going.
Toronto bowed out in a tepid five games to the Florida Panthers in the second round in 2023, before Kyle Dubas was fired as general manager less than two weeks later.
That dismissal followed a roller-coaster stretch that led to questions about Keefe’s future, but new GM Brad Treliving elected to keep the Dubas loyalist after taking the reins, and then inked the coach from Brampton, Ont., to a contract extension through 2025-26.
Team searching for ‘new voice,’ GM says
“Today’s decision was difficult,” Treliving said in a statement. “Sheldon is an excellent coach and a great man; however, we determined a new voice is needed to help the team push through to reach our ultimate goal.
“We thank Sheldon for his hard work and dedication to the organization over the last nine years, and wish him and his family all the very best.”
It’s unclear what will happen to the team’s assistant coaches. The Leafs said in Thursday’s statement that “decisions regarding the remainder of the coaching staff will follow.”
Special teams have been a focal point of the team’s playoff failures in recent years, and this latest seven-game series against the Bruins was no exception. The Leafs scored a single power play goal in 21 tries against the Bruins, which could call assistant coach Guy Boucher’s job into question, as he ran the power play.
