Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after his team’s 3-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights that dropped the Leafs’ record to 4-3-0.
On the team’s performance:
We just got beat by a team that was better than us tonight in all facets.
On the scary-looking injury to John Tavares and then his return to the game:
I haven’t heard [an update]. He got hit by a puck, so usually, those kinds of things take a little time to settle down.
On the team’s poor starts to periods:
Hard to say. It hasn’t really been an issue for us to date. It certainly was an issue tonight in all three periods. I share in that as well. My job is to prepare the team. Clearly, we were not as ready as the opponent was. They jumped right on top of us at the start of each period.
It took us 10-12 minutes in the first and second period to really get our game going. In the back half of each of those periods, we were fine. In the third period, we didn’t find it at all. Probably a symptom of them scoring, getting the lead, and us not having enough pushback to get through like we needed to.
On the number of times Vegas got in behind the defense:
That is a concern. It was too easy for them tonight.
On Ilya Samsonov’s performance:
I thought he battled. There were a lot of times guys were getting in behind us. A lot of stuff around the crease. It was a tough night for him. We didn’t do a good enough job in front of him.
On the lack of puck luck for Matthews and Marner and how they’re coping with it:
I think they are dealing with it fine. They just have to continue to work. Matty is not going to come as close to scoring without actually scoring than he did tonight. It is right there. He just has to continue to stay with it.
