Sheldon Keefe will remain with the Toronto Marlies the next two years – and not far from Scotiabank Arena should a change with Mike Babcock take place.
In a move that keeps Babcock’s heir apparent from straying to another NHL team, Leaf general manager Kyle Dubas announced Tuesday that Keefe has been extended two years. The past two seasons have seen Keefe win the Calder Cup in 2018 and reach the conference final in 2019, all while sending a number of prospects to the parent team.
“Over the last four seasons, Sheldon has done a great job developing our individual prospects into Leafs while also guiding the Marlies deep into the playoffs in each of his four seasons with the organization,” Dubas said in a release. “Ensuring that Sheldon remains tasked with guiding the development of our prospects was very important to our program and the reason we began the discussion to extend Sheldon months ago.”
The 38-year-old Keefe, hired by Dubas from the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, has and continues to be considered for jobs around the NHL, but not been made available. Part of that is satisfaction with his own situation as the highly paid coach of the farm team and the knowledge he might be in line for the head coaching job in Toronto one day. Babcock has four more years in his deal, but faced intense scrutiny for his decisions in the seven-game opening round loss to Boston, the second straight year a strong Leafs team failed to get past the Bruins.
Babcock’s assistants have now moved on, but there was little chance Keefe would take one of those spots as he awaits bigger things, here or elsewhere.
“It’s been a privilege and honour to be part of the Leafs organization and head coach of the Marlies for the past four seasons,” said Keefe. “In my conversations with the Leafs over the past several months, I felt that staying on with this club was the best decision for me, my family and my development. I’m incredibly proud of our recent achievements as a club and I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue to develop young Leafs.”
Keefe has spent four seasons behind the Marlies bench with an overall regular season record of 189-87-20-1 and led the team to the franchise’s first Calder in 2018. Earlier this season, he moved past Dallas Eakins (157) for the most regular season wins (189) by a coach in franchise history and has the highest winning percentage (.688) of any Marlies coach-to-date.
During 2017-18, Keefe led the Marlies to 54 regular season wins for the second time (2015-16), winning their second Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy as the AHL team with the most points or highest points percentage.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
