After an optional practice on Wednesday, Sheldon Keefe discussed the adjustments needed for Game 2 after a 4-2 loss to the Florida Panthers to open the series.
Practice Notes – May 3
Big turnout at Leafs optional practice
Among the absences: O’Reilly, Acciari, McCabe, Kampf, Samsonov pic.twitter.com/bcRA5uTy3Z
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) May 3, 2023
You mentioned last night that you liked the results when you changed the lines up. Is that going to be a constant thing to maximize your skill?
Keefe: We will see. You hope you can find some lines that are going to work with matchups and the flow of the game. I didn’t feel we got there yesterday in the first period. The second period was definitely better. In the third period, we are pressing there. We are trying to tie the game. I thought Florida did a good job not giving us a lot. It was tough there.
We would like to find some rhythm for sure. We were trying to find rhythm last series and never quite did. As we saw through some of the regular season, maybe we are better off with less consistency, more flow, less predictability, and having the players just go out and play.
We are going to manage all of that as the series goes. As we go into tomorrow, we would like to find some lines that are ready for an opportunity to respond.
When it did start to go a bit better against the Matthew Tkachuk line, what did you like? What was effective against them?
Keefe: You got to get them on their half of the ice. They were spending time in the offensive zone winning pucks back, making it hard for you to get out of your end, and then attacking your net. They get momentum, life, and energy. It really fuels the rest of their team’s game.
We started to spend way more time on their half of the ice in the second period. All of a sudden, all offensive players are not going to be as good. That is the challenge, but it is not easy. Those guys were really good last night. We allowed them to be even better than what we had expected.
Does converting on the power play help sort of ease the pressure and physicality of the forecheck if the other team is afraid of your man advantage unit?
Keefe: Yeah, for sure. I don’t know how much of that was related to the forecheck — they obviously had the one contact penalty — but the power play needs to come through. If you get two opportunities to score early in the game as we did, it is a big difference in the game — not only because we are down a goal going into the third period but because you are chasing the game. All game, we never led versus us getting off to a start early and everything sort of settles in from there.
Because we were chasing it, it is harder to manage their best players the way that we needed to when we were also trying to score and get an edge offensively. You are trying to take advantage of their fourth line when they go out by getting your best players against them. That makes it a little bit harder to check their best people.
Those are all of the kinds of things that you are trying to manage that make it harder when you don’t have a lead. The power play had a chance to do that yesterday. The process was quite good. It just didn’t capitalize. We need to find a way to get that in.
Is there anything that you saw on the power play that you want to see improved for the next game?
Keefe: We had some really good looks. They make it challenging.
There is a really strong trend in the league over the last season. You had about a third of the league that is defending with this really passive diamond. Now, it is about half of the league or approaching two-thirds of the league.
It presents some challenges. We have to find a way to get things into the net differently. I thought we did enough of that last night to certainly get rewarded with one goal, but it didn’t happen. You have to solve the penalty kill, and you have to solve the goaltender.
The process was good. We entered the zone really well. We had lots of time in the zone. We are confident that if that process continues, it will go in.
Is there a time to get William Nylander back on the top unit?
Keefe: We went to it in Game 6 out in Tampa to try to give it a different look at that time. We didn’t like it. It didn’t go well for us. We went back to a different look.
One of the things I did really like with Willy being on the second group: He comes out fresh at about a minute or so depending on what is happening in the power play. He is the first guy to come over the boards no matter who comes off. He comes out fresh while we still have some of our first unit still out there or most of our first unit still out there. You have him with lots of jump that comes out.
Last series, I thought we got a lot more out of the second group than we have maybe all season. There are some positives to that — not only for William to take charge when he is out there with those guys but when he comes out fresh as momentum is sort of dying on our power play. He comes out, and I think it changes the dynamic a bit.
Again, last night, we had some really good chances late in the power play. We haven’t had that most of the season. I think that is an important factor for us as well.
Did you feel you made it difficult enough for Sergei Bobrovsky to see the puck?
Keefe: At times, we could do better. We looked at that today. As I said last night, I thought the game and the types of shots we generated were different than what we had in previous series. It was a little bit more challenging that way.
There are a lot more rush chances. There are a lot more broken type of plays. There is less set offensive zone sequencing to go stand on top of the goaltender. It seemed that we didn’t do enough of it, but I think there are reasons for it. I don’t think it had as much to do with our lack of commitment to doing it.
Certainly, it is important for that to happen, especially as a goaltender is coming off of not just how he played last series but how he played last night. He is going to be a confident guy. We are going to have to get to him.
Are you inclined to keep Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner together?
Keefe: We are looking at it. How we deal with the matchups is part of it. We spent the morning more so going through the video and talking through that as a staff. We have kind of moved onto the debates about some of the lines. We have some time to sort through that.
We will probably go back and forth a bunch before tomorrow.
It is a leaguewide trend for the road teams winning in the playoffs, but is it frustrating to see another one get away from you at home last night?
Keefe: Yeah, it is a league-wide trend, but it doesn’t make you feel any better about it. You are still trying to get it right. It should be a tough place for other teams to play. We should be better. We should have more life and more energy. We just haven’t had that.
It certainly is a topic around here in terms of handling that better no matter where we are playing. You should be able to play the same. I think we got off to a fine start last night — we had some pace, got out of our zone well, earned the power plays through that process, and we had a chance to take hold of the game and didn’t. It faded from there.
At home, you should never fade. That is the thing that has happened for us. We have to fix that. No better time to do it than tomorrow.
