New Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe earns win in first game

This was the Toronto Maple Leafs untethered. Free and easy and driving.

Sheldon Keefe’s debut was a winning one and offered some glimpses of what to expect from a head coach who wants his players to unleash their skill and dominate the puck.

The Leafs tilted the ice heavily while handing the Arizona Coyotes a 3-1 loss on Thursday night and didn’t take their foot off the gas while ending a six-game losing streak in the process.

In fact, it was unquestionably their most dominant win of a disappointing season and came against the NHL’s eighth-best team by points percentage. That it arrived less than 24 hours after Keefe replaced Mike Babcock behind the bench — and without so much as a full practice under the new boss — had to be an encouraging sign for management.

“We’ve got to look at it as a fresh start,” defenceman Tyson Barrie said before scoring his first goal of the season. “This is a chance to find ourselves and really get going.”

Barrie is one of the most obvious beneficiaries of the coaching change — seeing a couple shifts on the top pairing alongside Morgan Rielly in Thursday’s game and getting elevated to the top power-play unit.

He’s struggled to produce since coming over from Colorado in an off-season trade and the weight of the world seemed to be lifted from his shoulders after he carried the puck to the bottom of the circle and beat Darcy Kuemper glove side to open the scoring.

Keefe will encourage the Leafs to take some chances in the offensive zone and told them as much in his first meeting on Thursday morning.

“My message to the players today is that I’m not focused on what this team isn’t, I’m focused on what this team is,” said Keefe. “We’ve got really good people here. We’ve got a lot of talent. We have the ability to make life hard on the other team in a lot of ways.

“So focusing on that, we believe, will produce positive results because the players are good enough for that to happen.”

They were certainly a handful for the Coyotes — one of the NHL’s biggest surprises through a quarter of the season. Toronto controlled more than 61 per cent of even-strength shot attempts through 40 minutes and many were of the high-danger variety.

Pierre Engvall sent the Leafs to the second intermission with a 2-0 lead thanks to a short-handed breakaway at 16:49. That was the first NHL goal for the former seventh-round pick — one of Keefe’s development success stories from his time in the American Hockey League.

Hometown boy Auston Matthews then scored in the first minute of third period to put Toronto comfortably ahead. Vinnie Hinostroza ended Frederik Andersen’s shutout bid with 16.9 seconds to play.

Leafs management wasn’t sure what to expect given the hastiness of the coaching change and expect to have some growing pains while this group adjusts to Keefe.

“There is going to be a few bumps along the way,” said general manager Kyle Dubas. “If there aren’t bumps along the way, and we aren’t doing things aggressively to try to enact change, then it’s not what we’re really aiming for.

“So there are going to be moments where it doesn’t look great, where it doesn’t feel great and people will likely jump on that say ‘Geez, that doesn’t look like it’s going to be positive for the group.”’

Fortunately, it didn’t go that way for them on Thursday night, when an underperforming team seemed to rediscover its swagger.