Next Maple Leafs coach must get more from star power at crunch time

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The new coach of the Maple Leafs, whoever that is, would seem to have just one priority.

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Grab a talented hockey team by the collar and take it a round, or two, or three deeper in playoffs than his two immediate predecessors.

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But the other eight months of the season will require a degree in human resource management, with equal parts tough love and parental supervision.

That’s to deal with the four former first-round picks at the centre of a club that has failed to mesh at crunch time. Six times this group has lost a deciding game of a series that could’ve led to greater things.

At $50 million, Mike Babcock was a good coach, but a bad babysitter, losing his job in large part because, as a stubborn old-schooler, he couldn’t connect with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly.

The now-fired Sheldon Keefe gave that group a longer leash as part of former general manager Kyle Dubas’ hope they’d mature on and off the ice.

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It worked in regular season, Keefe supervising three 100+ point campaigns, unprecedented in team history, and for himself, the second-best winning percentage among the top 80 coaches in NHL history.

It yielded a trophy haul for Matthews, all-star nods for himself and Marner, while Marner and Nylander knocked on the door of being the club’s first hundred-point wingers.

But the payoff never came in playoffs for reasons ranging from ill-timed injuries to perceived indifference buying into the sacrifices of post-season hockey. Public perception, fair or not, is that the stars are too coddled and aren’t accountable enough.

Certainly, less than 60 playoff games on each of their hockey cards at this stage of their careers flatters no one. Let’s see if the new bench boss can get more from the core when it counts.

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Top five coaches in Leafs history by points percentage

Coach Games  Wins  Losses OTL/T  Points pctg. Playoff record

Sheldon Keefe  349 212 97 40 .665 16-21

Pat Quinn  574 300 196 78   .588 41-39

Dick Irvin 426 215 152 59 .574 33-32-1

Punch Imlach 770 370 275 125  .563 44-48

Mike Babcock 351 173 133 45  .557 8-12

Top 10 NHL winning percentage by active coaches

Coach  Games  Winning% 

Rod Brind’Amour  452  .615

Sheldon Keefe*   349 .607

Jon Cooper  879 .597

Bruce Cassidy   673 .577

Jarded Bednar   618  .552

Peter Laviolette  1,512  .534

Mike Sullivan   835 .533

Peter DeBoer   1,179 .519

Lindy Ruff  1,774  .487

John Tortorella   1,547 .480

lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby

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