Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after his team’s 4-3 overtime win over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series.
On the team’s ability to pull out a win in a game in which they were outplayed:
I thought we pulled it out because we stayed with it. We certainly bent here tonight. We didn’t break.
The Tampa Bay Lightning played an incredible hockey game. They were really, really good. I don’t think we played poorly. I thought the Tampa Bay Lightning played incredibly well, and yet, I thought our team stayed with it. We didn’t break. Certainly, at times, we had to rely on Sammy tonight — especially in that overtime. He was outstanding.
Territorially, it was all Tampa. It was very much in their favour, but because we defended well and played really hard, they didn’t get a whole lot to our net. The territorial advantage is far more significant than the scoring chances were. It didn’t allow us to really get our game going. We couldn’t sustain much.
Credit to our guys. Tampa gave us absolutely everything that they had tonight. Our guys stayed with it. We got a clutch goal to get us to overtime. You are right there.
I really liked how our guys stayed with it. You look over the last number of years, and we have lost this game a lot of times. Today, our guys stayed with it and made sure we got the win.
On losing Auston Matthews for five minutes due to the fight against Stamkos:
Never good to not have him for any period of time. It was a great goal for sure. Loved the goal. He is in that spot, and he gets a stick on it.
In terms of the fight and all of that… I look at that whole sequence, and first of all, I loved how he stood up for himself. Again, it is another example of our guys standing in there.
The fight itself is a classic example of a veteran, championship team like Tampa Bay manipulating the officials and taking advantage of a situation. They know we are basically already going on the power play because of the Kucherov situation. It is a free-for-all. They can do whatever they want. They just know, with the way the game is called, they are not going to get another penalty.
If you watch that sequence back, to say we shouldn’t be on a 5-on-3… I mean, the official is literally holding Steven Stamkos with one hand, and his other hand — with no glove on — is punching Auston Matthews. It’s not the linesman. It is the referee who calls the penalties who is holding Steve Stamkos while this is happening. It is five and five instead of us getting another penalty there.
Credit to Tampa for recognizing that situation. It is a free pass. You can do what you want. Not only do they get out of it unscathed, but they take Matthews and O’Reilly with them to the box. Brilliant play by the Lightning there manipulating that situation.
On O’Reilly’s performance and clutch goal:
There is not much else to say. We get him for these moments. He scores such a clutch goal for us at a key time. He was solid defensively today. He was talking through it even though — again — territorially, we were getting it taken to us pretty good tonight.
He is talking through it. He is keeping the guys upbeat. He is keeping us positive. It is so important.
Every win in the playoffs is important, but this is an important one. For us to come through a game like that, where we are on the road and the home team is carrying play and giving us everything that we have… Sometimes it is the defending. Sometimes it is a blocked shot. Sometimes it is about box-outs. Sometimes they get to the goalie. Sammy was great.
Our guys stuck with it. To that end, we deserve the win as much as they do because of all of those things. As we sit here tonight, I think we had 63 hits in the game tonight. Our guys were competing hard.
Tampa Bay was better than us in a lot of areas tonight, but our guys stuck right there. Credit to them for finding a way to win. That is what it is about at this time of year.
On Ilya Samsonov’s performance:
Huge. Along the way, you need that. It is just the reality of it. We are playing a team here — the Tampa Bay Lightning — who have won a lot. They are who they are for lots of different reasons. Part of that is that their goaltender has performances like Sammy had tonight. You need part of that.
That is what comes through here tonight on the road. At times, we definitely needed our goaltender to bail us out. It was great for him. He should feel really proud of his effort tonight.
On what Tampa brought to the game that was different and challenged the Leafs so much tonight:
What they were doing really was that their pressure on the puck was causing real problems for us. We didn’t have a lot of space or time to make plays. They ended up kind of getting us in the half-ice game, which they do extremely well.
We knew coming into the series that they are second in the NHL in time spent in the offensive zone. There are a lot of comments about their season and all of these kinds of things, but through the regular season, they were elite at a number of things.
One of those things is time spent in the offensive zone. That is because of how they play — puck pressure, half-ice game, quick ups. They got us in that trap tonight. We really couldn’t get through that consistently. That was part of it.
Because they have you on your heels there, it is hard to be on your toes and establish your own game. That is what they did really well tonight.
The not getting frustrated part is critical. We talked about it after the second period. Territorially, the game is absolutely in Tampa’s favour — no doubt. But we are one shot away, and we are standing right there.
That team was giving us everything they had. Tampa is giving us everything we had, and yet we are still right there. There were lots of reasons to remain confident, go out, compete, stay strong, and not let them get the next one.
That is what our guys did. It was a combination of Willy getting the puck to the net and O’Reilly being in the right spot and making good on it. All of that stuff coming together is a big moment for our team.
On how Ilya Samsonov is feeling after the game:
I think he is tired like everybody else. I didn’t talk to him much other than to congratulate him and thank him for his effort tonight. I can’t help but think the guy would be really proud of his effort.
If you look at how things went in Game 1, he built some positivity in Game 2. He has really pushed hard tonight on the road against a very good team that is not an easy team to play goal against because of how they move the puck, the motion, and the activity they have with the quality of shooters.
He stood his ground. He had his best hockey when it was most critical when we just could not afford to give up the next goal, whether that is the back half of the second period, the third period, or of course, the overtime. He was great.
