Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after his team’s Game 2 loss to the Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
On the start of the second period in which the Leafs conceded twice in under a minute:
Disappointing. Baffling, frankly. We didn’t make those mistakes one time in the last series.
On the team making different kinds of mistakes this series:
That is why it is baffling.
On how the team is handling the physicality of the series:
I think we are handling it fine. The first period was physical. In the second and third, I didn’t think there was much of that. The first period was maybe our best period. We handled it just fine.
On Matthew Knies’ status after leaving the game and the incident involving Sam Bennett:
I don’t have an update on his status. He didn’t complete the game, so that is not positive.
In terms of the hit, I am not going to comment on that. The league will look at that. I am sure the cross-check on Bunting is eerily similar to the one we saw with Auston in the outdoor game. We know how that one worked out.
We will just see. The league will look at all of these kinds of things.
Sam Bennett should get supplemental discipline for this but he probably won’t pic.twitter.com/IKFxA8a9cD
— Michael (@mic_mazz) May 5, 2023
On the team’s 1-4 record on home ice in the playoffs so far:
The difference, I would say, just looking at these two games and not so much last series: We didn’t find our way back. This one is disappointing. We were rolling early in the game. We just gave it back to them. Those are things we haven’t done, and frankly, you just can’t do if you are serious about winning.
On the state of Ilya Samsonov’s game at the moment:
He’s fine.
