from Sonny Sachdeva of Sportsnet,
After his Toronto Maple Leafs dropped a winnable season opener to the Montreal Canadiens, Sheldon Keefe called his club’s effort “unacceptable.”
Monday night, after his team’s second subpar performance of the year — a 4-2 loss to the rebuilding Arizona Coyotes that seemed all too familiar — Keefe was more pointed in his criticism of the team, pointing, specifically, at his leadership group:
“The difference between us and Arizona is that we have elite players,” he said in the wake of that loss. “And our elite players didn’t play like elite players.”
On Wednesday, the bench boss walked back the criticism of his stars.
“I used some of the wrong words to try to describe what I was trying to describe, which is that the difference in the game was just, we weren't able to produce, whether it's power play or five-on-five. And that's really the difference, with all the puck time we had. But by no means was I meaning anything beyond that.”
JFC. I know its a high pressure job but he is digging his own grave talking like this. Calling out your players and then walking it back? Whos in charge in Toronto?
Yeah, thats really not good that he must feel hes on shaky enough ground with mgmt and the teams several very very highly-paid elite players so that he has to debase himself and undermine his own authority like that. It was clear what he meant: our best players werent good enough to help us beat a lousy team. Everyone knows there are a lot of variables in hockey and effort doesnt always lead to results within a given game. But that wasnt a comment that came out wrong. It was a comment that apparently wasnt well received and his walking it back shows who has more clout: the underperforming stars who are always harder to trade than a coach is to fire.
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