Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after his team’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Ottawa Senators in the Leafs’ penultimate game of the regular season.
On Nick Foligno’s showing on the Tavares-Nylander line:
I thought he played fine today. In terms of our lines, I don’t think any of our lines really got much going. Special teams really ruined the flow of the game at five-on-five. I don’t think you can take much from the even-strength play.
On what stood out to him about Frederik Andersen’s performance:
He got through the game. He moved well. I would say that was what stood out. That was really what the game was about: just getting him through the 60 minutes and feeling good. By all accounts, it seems that was the case.
On the struggles of the top power-play unit:
It just needs to execute. If you go back and look at each of the power plays, our best players have the puck on their stick at different times. We just don’t make the play. We either give it directly back to them or they take it from us.
It is not a matter of structure or anything like that here tonight. It is just a matter of having the puck on your stick and making the appropriate play. We failed to do that tonight with our first unit.
Our second unit was excellent and scored us a great goal.
On the balance of wanting to win versus prioritizing getting through the final games with a healthy lineup:
That would be the most important thing for sure. That is the biggest mental hurdle right now. If you get a game like this one tonight, you want the team to play well, the guys want to play well, and you want to win the game, but our guys know what is around the corner here. No one wants to be going into it too banged up.
You are a little shy on everything that you are doing, and you are just not quite into it mentally. It is a 56-game season. We are only through 55. We have to play the game. We don’t have the flexibility to be able to make sweeping changes and sit multiple people.
We have to find a way to stay in it mentally enough to make sure we don’t let our guard down. That is when bad things tend to happen — injuries and such. We have to stay sharp through this next game, and then we can turn the page from there.
On whether there is a sense of disappointment there was a lack of execution in a game that was important for Frederik Andersen:
When you talk about execution, what are you talking about?
… I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think the two are related.
