It’s official: Sheldon Keefe has been fired as the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Less than a week after the franchise was ousted out of the playoffs via a 2-1 Game 7 overtime loss against the Boston Bruins, Keefe was let go by the franchise after four-and-a-half seasons in charge, the team announced Thursday.
“I believe in myself greatly. I love coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs,” Keefe told the media on Monday. “It’s out of my control. But I believe in myself, that I will win and my team will win.”
Since taking over the job in 2019, Keefe has gone 212-97-40 in the regular season with Toronto, a .607 winning percentage, while going 16-21 in the playoffs, a .432 winning percentage.
“Worst day of the season when you haven’t met expectations. As head coach, I take responsibility,” Keefe added. “We’re in the results business here and we didn’t get results, and we haven’t met expectations.”
Toronto fell down 3-1 in their first round matchup against the Bruins before equalling the series at 3-3. In Game 7, Toronto took a brief 1-0 lead midway through the third period before falling in overtime.
“In this series, I thought we showed signs of a team that could win,” Keefe said on Saturday night in the moments following the 2-1 loss. “We look at this team, and we have a core group of guys with some young guys who are really coming. Maybe that is a little bit disconnected right now in terms of the young guys coming to support, but there are a lot of good things happening — and that happened in this series with how the team played, bought into a plan, and found success to give us a chance to compete here.”