Na it ain't hard to cook with someone else's groceries IF your creative and a good cook! If not than ya...

Ok but what about him benching Modano with 1499 games played?.... The answer is he's a dick!

The main reason why Babcock was fired is because he lost the room due to his stubbornness, throwing players under the bus and his arrogance as I alluded to in one of my previous comments. Babcock definitely mismanaged the roster which is fine as long as your willing to change things when they don't work (its called making mistakes or trying something new/different).

I can't stand watching the constant drop passes on the pp especially when our players are nowhere near the opposing teams penalty killers. It's been played out for yeArs and doesn't work...try something new while I still have some hair left lol. I like the idea of pairing Rielly and Barrie on the 1pp but even if he wouldn't why not at least TRY Barrie their and drop Rielly to see if something clicks and our pp can get going then bring Rielly back up and see how things go.

It will be nice to see Mathews, Tavares, Nylander and Marner (when healthy) finally play over 20mins a night on a consistent basis. I also expected him to finish out the season before he got axed but hey I'll take an early christmas present lol.

The biggest difference between us right now is I definitely don't have mixed feelings. Although, I'm not saying that keefe won't make mistakes just that I think the fans (not saying you) and the media need to give him some leeway for a bit but this is Toronto and you know the first mistake he makes people (the media mainly) will be comparing him to babs and not in a good way.

Rant over now go crack a beer and rejoice

I get all the reasons why he's fired. The main reason why I have mixed feelings about this firing is because he never had a healthy roster yet this season.

The other thing is...beyond this season, Shanny and Dubas needed to make sure coaching was not the problem (especially in the playoffs) but I guess we will never know now.

The one thing that does scare me about this move is if this change doesn't help...then what? Trigger pulled too early on a coach?
It could also lead to trades....and you never want to trade pennies on the dollar.

So I've taken some time to respond to you as my initial response seemed a little hasty and I respect you and highly value your opinion. Hopefully, I don't come off as being a dick or anything as that's not my intent with what I'm about to say....

I don't understand your stance here as Babcock has been the head coach for 4 full seasons and just got fired early in his 5th year although I don't count his first year as we were tanking for Matthews. Nonetheless, he's had 3 full seasons with this core except for JT and has made 3 playoff appearances the first of which we overachieved and I fully give Mike credit for that but he last two show who Mike is as a coach.

I don't hate Babcock or anything I just think his shelf life had come to an end. When Mike first got here he helped remove the toxicity from our dressing room which was great but now he's created a toxic environment for our players or at least he did before he got the gate.

Mike is a good coach and I have no doubt that he will be employed again whenever he wants heck I could envision a few team's that might fire their coach just to hire him if he has any interest in coaching said team. That being said he wasn't the right fit for us anymore.

You claim you know the reasons why he was fired but have no problems with him continuing coaching? I thought that's why you assumed this was a punt year (that's why I did and again not trying to be a dick or anything). Whether or not he had a healthy roster wouldn't have made a difference as he lost the room. I don't know if you watched last night's game but it was extremely refreshing to see guys smiling again.

In another thread I mentioned that Keefe's biggest hurdle as head coach would be to get the team to want to play for each other opposed to their own individual accolades as it hasn't worked up to this point and he really surprised me that he got them to in his first game behind the bench I mean did you see the players reactions after Barrie scored his first goal?

We've seen Babcock coach in the playoffs for three years what did you think would suddenly change? I can't think of anything. Even if coaching was not the problem as you alluded to a change was needed a new voice and direction were needed IMO so I don't understand how you think we will never know if coaching was the problem in the playoffs.

You can't be scared to make a change or at least it's not a good enough reason for me sports are all about taking risks. Look no further than the Raptors firing Dwayne Casey and trading Derozen coach Casey is a good coach and an even better human being but it was necessary as was trading Derozen as we gave them enough chances and they couldn't get the job done. Think back to all those playoff series against the Lebron led Cavs as a coach you have two options 1) double team Lebron and let the rest of the team get their points or 2) stay man to man and live with Lebron's points, Casey kept flip-flopping which is why we kept losing, a coach needs to pick a game plane and stay with it unless they see it's not working but when you flip flop the team looses faith in you.

Sheldon Keefe may very well not work out but I think it's a risk that needed to be taken and I certainly don't think it will be all sunshine and roses as there will be ebbs and flows but again, I think it was necessary and if it doesn't work then we make some deals but we have to give him a long enough leash too see if he fails or not. Anyways rant over and like I said hopefully you don't take my response the wrong way as I enjoy conversing with you and look forward to your response.

No offense taken bud. I'm don't handle change well so that's part why I feel the way I do.
The healthy roster comment well...I still feel that a coach should have the healthiest roster available but that wasn't possible but hey...when Babcock can't even utilize the healthy players to their strengths then all the other things are irrelevant.

Anyway so far so good with the first game under the belt.

I don't deal with change well usually either but this change was needed IMO. I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted when I saw that Babcock got fired and Keefe hired so I can only imagine how the players must have felt. I agree that a coach should have a healthy roster to be given a fair chance but I think this was the exception not the rule.

We did look good hopefully there's a lot more games like that too come!