Toronto Maple Leafs fire Mike Babcock with team falling short of expectations

The Toronto Maple Leafs have fired Mike Babcock and replaced him with Sheldon Keefe and time will tell if it was the right move.

It appears that Brendan Shanahan had enough as the Toronto Maple Leafs announced that Mike Babcock was relieved of his duties as head coach with Sheldon Keefe taking over.

The move still comes as a surprise considering the team is on the road and there was no imminent report of Babcock losing his job other than people suggesting it was coming. Now that it has happened, the team will now have to hope that this change can spark something considering how dreadful they have been playing.

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Of course, to say that the team’s poor play is just on Babcock would be unfair and you have to think the players got the message loud and clear. Whether or not more changes are on the horizon remains to be seen.

When the team hired Babcock back in 2015 to help the franchise turn things around and you can say that he did that but in the end, he wasn’t just being paid to get the team to the playoffs but to get as close to a Stanley Cup as possible.

You saw the impact he had getting players like Morgan Rielly and Nazem Kadri back on track but there were decisions that he made that were highly scrutinized as well.

The question you have to wonder is whether the team is able to salvage the season and whether Kyle Dubas is going to have to make some changes to the roster as well. You have to think Shanahan isn’t letting the general manager off the hook considering he is also responsible for how the season has gone.

Some might see this as positive news because they had enough of Babcock but we have to understand that when a team fires a coach, it means that there is a serious problem that needs to be fixed.

We all know that Keefe is Dubas’ guy and won with him in the AHL as the coach of the Toronto Marlies. Is that relationship going to be enough to get this back on track or are we overvaluing AHL success?

Dubas probably knows that the spotlight is on him now but now he has the coach he probably wanted to hire during the off-season to go with the roster he assembled. To suggest that the clock is ticking on the second-year GM might be a bit of an overreaction considering he has tried to make moves to improve the team.

You can tell that there was a disconnect with the front office and the coaching staff stemming from last season and now with Babcock gone, it’s up to the players to show that they can play for this coach.

What did you think about the decision to fire Babcock? Was it done too early? Does he get another job right away? Let us know in the comments below.