Sheldon Keefe will remain coach of Toronto Maple Leafs

Reports on Monday confirmed that Sheldon Keefe will be the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs to begin the 2023-2024 season.

Keefe has coached the Leafs since replacing Mike Babcock early in the 2019-2020 season. Since then, Toronto has not missed the postseason and is fifth in the NHL in regular season points.

While the Maple Leafs have seen considerable regular-season success under Keefe, there were still questions about the 42-year-old’s future coming into the offseason thanks to Toronto’s ignominious recent playoff record.

Though Keefe led the Leafs to their first series win since 2004 against the rival Tampa Bay Lightning, the team did little to shake its reputation of shrinking in the postseason in the second round; the Eastern Conference champion Florida Panthers sent Toronto home after a lopsided five-game series.

Brendan Shanahan, the Maple Leafs’ president of hockey operations, probably secured the future of Keefe, who is in the last year of his contract, during the messy saga that led to the firing of GM Kyle Dubas.

Shanahan parted company with Dubas after several unproductive meetings over the successful executive’s future with the team.

Former Calgary GM Brad Treliving replaced Dubas and likely decided that axing Keefe, who has led the team to consecutive finishes of 111 points or more, would upset his new team’s chemistry in the wake of Dubas’s controversial dismissal.

Though Keefe will survive the offseason, he is under pressure to succeed in 2023-2024.

The Maple Leafs’ “Core Four” of star players is on the brink of imploding after another underachieving postseason finish. William Nylander is in a contract year, it will take a record-setting extension to keep Auston Matthews in Toronto, and John Tavares will be 33 on opening night.

2023-2024 may be Keefe’s last chance to achieve championship success with the most loaded Maple Leafs’ roster in decades.