After practice on Friday, Sheldon Keefe discussed Ondrej Kase’s status after leaving the game in Calgary, Morgan Rielly jumping to Kase’s defense, the plan to start Petr Mrazek in Vancouver on Saturday night, and the club signing Joe Woll to a three-year contract extension.
It must’ve been good to see Ondrej Kase back skating?
Keefe: Yeah, it is great. The reports were good by the time we got off the plane yesterday. He was continuing to feel alright and feeling better this morning. He wanted to test it on the ice. All reports are that he is doing well.
I talked to him, and he said he is doing great. We will continue to monitor him and make a decision on him tomorrow, but everything is positive right now.
Is Wayne Simmonds on track to play tomorrow night?
Keefe: Yes. I am not certain about his flight, but he is supposed to arrive tonight.
Which goalie are you going with tomorrow night?
Keefe: Mrazek will go tomorrow.
Is that part of getting both goalies going?
Keefe: I really wanted to get both goalies in on this trip. I think that is the best way to do it — to split them for the first two games, and then make a decision for Monday from that.
Is there any concern with Jack Campbell giving up five last night, or was it more situational with giving up prime opportunities?
Keefe: I think Jack was in a tough spot in the game last night. There was not a whole lot of activity going on for him. We were giving up nothing through the game up until their first goal. That one hits Justin Holl stick. Another hits Jake Muzzin and goes in. On the backdoor off of the faceoff, there is not a lot you are going to do there. Another one was post and in.
These are really good looks coming at a time when he really hadn’t been tested much at all. Jack, the competitor that he is, wants to have those.
I didn’t like that part of the game — we went from having full control of the game and giving up virtually nothing to all of a sudden really counting on the goalie. That is a tough spot. I don’t put much of that onto Jack at all.
Our focus today, again, was just cleaning up our game and those details, understanding that things were going well, we scored to make it 1-0, and we had full control of the game. We let it slip to go to 1-1. It goes from 2-1 to 4-1 in a hurry. That is unacceptable on our part. It is nothing to do with goaltending.
Have you been encouraged by what Petr Mrazek has been able to do in the limited time since he has been back full time?
Keefe: He has been great in his performance in the games, his work ethic in practice, his attitude around the work, the way he has worked in the gym, and the way he has taken care of his body. All of those things have really just come together nicely for him. For all of those reasons, it makes it easy to give Jack time off and to give Petr more work.
When looking at the mistakes in the game yesterday, are they easy fixes given the way that the team played throughout the whole game?
Keefe: I think they are easy fixes. The first goal is an issue on our backcheck coming back in. We have numbers there. We just give up a little bit too much space. Another one is a faceoff play that we had discussed before the game. It was one we see quite often. It is very common in the league. We know how we want to defend that. Quite often, we do a really good job of it. In that moment, we didn’t.
Those kinds of things can be cleaned up. The power play goal they scored was off of a lost faceoff, shot at the net, and redirected off of our guys. Not much going on there. The neutral zone was an issue on the fourth goal.
Those things are quick cleanups, which is why we talked about them really quickly today. We really focused on the good things that we did in the game against a very good team. If we continue to focus on those things, we are going to continue to put together good stretches of hockey as we have done all season.
What does it say about Morgan Rielly that he jumped in right away after the hit last night?
Keefe: I think it speaks to the spirit of the group and the guys sticking together. Morgan is a leader on the team, obviously. That is not his job necessarily or what he does, but in that moment, it is what was called for. He was there.
Showing up is the biggest part of it for your teammates. That is one of the things I really took away from the game that I liked. It is one thing, like in the game before, when Wayne Simmonds does it; you come to expect that, and it is what he has been like throughout his career. He is going to step up for himself and his teammates like that. When other guys are sticking together — whether it is that [hit] or stuff around the net — those are competitive pieces where our guys just do what is required at that moment.
These are sidebars in the actual game itself, but it is still part of what happens on the ice. I like how our guys responded in those moments.
Are you happy to be returning to 12 and 6 tomorrow after a game with 11 and 7?
Keefe: Yeah, that is how we prefer to play. Going into yesterday’s game, you have no Simmonds, and our salary cap situation being what it is, you don’t have a lot of options. Our only other option was to send down any of our guys that don’t require waivers such as Sandin or Liljegren and bring up a forward. We didn’t want to do that.
We thought going 11 and 7 made some sense for us given those circumstances. It will be nice to get Simmer back. If Kase is good to go, it gets us back to 12 and 6. Obviously, that is how we like to play. We’ll get back to it.
How are the Vancouver Canucks a different team since the coaching change?
Keefe: Obviously, the energy around the team is probably the biggest thing. Any time you have been on the wrong side of games for a long period of time, it wears on a team. It seems like they have a great energy about them. They have a goaltender that gives them a chance to win every time he is in the net. They have some really good players that if you make mistakes, they make you pay for it.
It is going to be a game where it is challenging to get offense and score goals. We have to make it hard to do so. We have to do a good job against their best people. That is really it. It is generally the recipe every night, but certainly, going into tomorrow, it seems like that is the case.
Do you have any history with Bruce Boudreau at all with him being a former Leaf and a huge Leafs fan when he is not coaching?
Keefe: We chatted a little bit over the last little while since he didn’t have a job and we were looking for guys. We went through that process. I think it was really clear to me that Bruce has proven to be a very successful head coach in the league. That is where he belongs. It was good to see him get back behind the bench calling the shots.
Do you see the bench minors with the to–many-men stuff something that needs to be cleaned up? Is it kind of an anomaly with how it has played out in the first half of the season?
Keefe: It has to be cleaned up, first of all. There is no question about that. I do see it as a bit of an anomaly. With the too-many-men on the ice thing, for anyone who has ever been on a bench, the way it plays it out is so fast. There are different circumstances.
Last night’s was one where Auston’s guy he is changing for is coming off of the ice, Auston sees that, begins to hop over the boards, is looking at the puck to find it and know where to go, and in that time, the guy he was changing for changed his mind and went back into the play. Those are the kinds of things that tend to happen. The players need to be aware and alert to what is going on.
The coach’s job is to call the players up. The player’s job is to know what is happening on the line changes. We need to be sharp in that area. It is not one I am spending too much time on because it is just happenstance, really, through the game.
It just so happens it hasn’t gone our way well this season. We need to be better in that area. I have a lot of things that are higher priority, let’s put it that way.
If a shift is 45-55 seconds, how soon into one shift are you calling the numbers for the next guys up?
Keefe: It depends. Sometimes immediately so the guys know. Sometimes you need a little bit of time to get a feel for what is happening on the other side. Sometimes you make decisions based on where the puck is and how the shift is going.
I would say about 20 seconds or so — halfway through the shift. Sometimes you can an audible and switch it again, but that is rare. I try to buy a little bit of time based on what is happening in the shift. That sometimes determines who the next line is.
The club announced a three-year extension for goaltender Joe Woll today. What does it say about his development?
Keefe: I think it is great for him. He impressed in his time here and did a really good job helping us win games. He really showed very well that he has a future as an NHL goaltender. He has to continue to work at it, obviously. Right now, he is working to get healthy and get back playing.
He gave us a taste of what he is capable of. It just gives us further reason to continue to invest in his development. To get him for three years and have that commitment both ways is a great thing. He can just focus on continuing to get better and work himself up to being a full-time NHL goaltender.
We have all the reason to continue to give him opportunities and continue to develop him.
