Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after his team’s 6-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Wednesday night, completing the three-game series sweep by a cumulative score of 13-1 and improving the Leafs’ record to 18-4-2 on the season.
On the three-game sweep:
We feel really good about the results and how we handled leads, how we built leads. A lot of really good things come out of this series here for us. We knew we were playing against a very good team that was as hot or hotter than any team in the NHL and was playing with a lot of confidence. For us to get results like this, it is a very good and healthy sign.
As much as we would love to sit and enjoy this one, we are off to the plane and off to Vancouver.
On Jimmy Vesey’s performances of late and his breakthrough offensively tonight (2g):
I was happy for him. It is great for us to get production from down the lineup like that. Obviously, when you are getting that, that is when you know things are going really well for your team. It is good for his confidence. I think he has the ability to score. He is in good spots and finishes his chance in both opportunities. That is really good to see for him.
We got him involved on the power play there to try to see if we could get him a third one. It’s really good for his confidence to get it to go in tonight.
On how Auston Matthews and Frederik Andersen looked in their return:
With Fred, I thought he was really good. He looked strong. He moved well and looked confident in net. We had breakdowns and we were on our heels a little bit at different times in the second and third and at the start of the game. He was really good for us. That is obviously a very good sign.
To get three strong performances from three different goaltenders against as a team like this says a lot about our goaltending depth — all three guys played well individually — and also says a lot about the team playing in front of them, how they competed, how they defended, and how they limited chances against a very good and dangerous team.
I thought Auston skated well. He looked good on the power play. Their line didn’t get a whole lot going at 5-on-5 other than a couple of sequences. It was a good night for them.
It is a tough kind of night. Once we get a lead like we did, that line really loses its rhythm. I stopped playing them as much as I normally would and wasn’t playing them in the same kind of spots I normally would. This was a tough night for players like that on our top line. I disrupted their rhythm quite a bit at even strength.
On Jack Campbell’s status and availability for tomorrow in Vancouver:
No real update other than he wasn’t available today to back up. We are going to get out to Vancouver and we will have to re-assess everything with our goalies tomorrow as well as our lineup in general.
On what he is expecting out of the Canucks tomorrow night:
I expect more of what we got from them in the third game we played them in Toronto. I started to look at some of that game just prior to our game here tonight as we started to really pull our preparation together for Vancouver with such a quick turnaround. I was looking at a clip in the third period, and the shots were 30-9 for Vancouver.
They make it hard on you if you don’t execute at a high level and you’re not ready to skate and compete. It is a back-to-back for us after a great, successful series like this. They are sitting in Vancouver waiting for us. Clearly, we won’t catch them off guard. They will be very much ready. It is going to be a great challenge for us to turn the page quickly and move on to a different opponent that brings its own challenges as we felt in that third game in Toronto.
