Sheldon Keefe, Toronto Maple Leafs practice
Sheldon Keefe, Toronto Maple Leafs practice

After practice on Wednesday, head coach Sheldon Keefe discussed the possible loss of Michael Bunting to a suspension, Matthew Knies potentially making his playoff debut, and returning to Ilya Samsonov in net for Game 2.

Practice Lines – April 19

How do you go about refocusing your group ahead of Game 2?

Keefe: You have a meeting. You have a practice. You have a chance to rinse everything out and get in a better frame of mind.

Obviously, it is tough coming in today. You don’t feel good about the effort or result you got last night. You brush yourself off and you get back to work today.

Is it more about Xs and Os or psychology?

Keefe: A little bit of both. There are some things you talk about. You go on the ice and have what amounts to tomorrow’s morning skate had we taken today off. We got that work in today. I did think it was important to get on the ice and be together as a group.

There are adjustments always to be made. When your frame of mind changes, a lot of things kind of snap back into place. We weren’t anywhere near ourselves yesterday.

How important is it to have a short memory and shut out the negativity after the first game?

Keefe: Very.

How do you snap the team back into the right mindset when there was that much deviance from what the team actually is?

Keefe: It wasn’t so much a structural thing so much as an urgency thing. To me, we were tentative. We were on our heels. That is not who we are or how we have played for the last chunk of time.

The other thing that has been really strong about our team: We have bounced back very well when we haven’t been ourselves or gotten a good result.

We are in a playoff series here. We talked about it last night. The emotions go both ways in a playoff series. It is about us just regrouping, refocusing, and understanding the importance of tomorrow’s game with an effort that reflects that.

Were there any discussions with Ilya Samsonov after last night’s game?

Keefe: No. Curtis Sanford, the goalie coach, handles that.

Are you sticking with Samsonov in net?

Keefe: Sammy is in net for sure. He is another guy that has bounced back very well.

He wanted to get on the ice today. We were going to sort of cater the practice to what he wanted as we normally would do coming off of a start, but he wanted to be in there.

To me, he was sending a message to the team about how focused he is. I thought he had an excellent practice today as short as it was. To me, he looks ready to get back at it.

What kind of loss would Michael Bunting be if he is suspended?

Keefe: He is a guy that plays with our top players and has the ability to score goals for us. He plays with lots of energy and all of that. He is going to be an important part of our team for sure. We will see how it goes. He has put himself into a bad spot here.

As I said, we have options if needed. We will move things around accordingly.

What made you want to put Ryan O’Reilly on the third line and John Tavares back at center?

Keefe: Our bottom six didn’t have a great day yesterday. There is that.

Also, I haven’t made any lineup decisions on what we will look like tomorrow, but I wanted to get John some reps back at center. He hasn’t had those all week. If we end up moving things around, we want him to be comfortable there.

Again, I haven’t made any final decisions. I wouldn’t read too much into what we look like today.

Is 11 and 7 something you would contemplate going forward?

Keefe: We used all the options like that down the stretch. We will see what happens with the Bunting situation and make a decision tomorrow. We do have options there. We are comfortable either way.

What can Matthew Knies provide for you in his first-ever NHL playoff game?

Keefe: I think he is a great option for us. In the games that he has played, I think he has done a good job. He has taken care of all that he can do in the short amount of time he has been here.

Bunting’s situation is up in the air right now. We will see how that goes.

We brought him in here for a reason and give him the games we gave him for a reason. We felt he would be a good option for us if needed.

The more experience we can give him, the better. Today, in practice, we tried to get him some proper reps. He really hasn’t had that this week.

As for the lineup decisions, we will make those tomorrow.

What made you want to move away from the Matthews line matching up with the Anthony Cirelli line early in the game?

Keefe: Those are their best defensive players, so if you can get your best offensive players away from their best defensive players, I think that is favourable. But it is challenging to do, especially when they play them so much.

They were winning a lot of the shifts — their team was — so they were getting on the front end of a lot of line changes. That is what happens when you carry play.

By and large, our guys have to play against everybody, but when I have an opportunity to keep them away from their best defensive people, I think that is part of my job to do so.

What did you think of Jake McCabe’s performance in his first playoff game?

Keefe: He had some great moments in the game competitively. I thought, by and large, it was probably a tough night for everybody on defense for us. I thought Luke Schenn had some really good moments in the game, but I thought as a group, our D core — like the rest of the team — had a tough night.

I’d put Jake there, but at the same time, he steps up with a big moment and makes a huge hit for us. At the time, we were coming back. We had just made it 3-2. It gets the building going. It was a good, hard, clean hit. Unfortunately, that whole situation turns to us being shorthanded in the game shortly after. The game gets away on us from there.

To me, we didn’t play well enough to be in a position with a chance to win, but it certainly felt like we were on our way to coming back and winning the game last night. That situation went south with the penalty to David Kampf and then the five-minute major not long after that.

That was the key moment in the game. I thought Caber did his job in terms of really getting momentum on our side. Unfortunately, we didn’t take advantage of it at that moment.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR