Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 3-2 overtime loss to the Nashville Predators which dropped the team’s record to 5-2-1.
On the team’s performance to end the road trip:
I thought it was similar to Dallas. We had an excellent first period. The difference from Dallas is that I thought we had more chances to score tonight than we did in the first period. We weren’t able to build a lead. It is tough from there.
At the end of a road trip, you know that fatigue is going to become a factor. When you lose another defenseman, the challenges with the fatigue are enhanced even more.
All in all, it is an important point for us. I liked that our guys stayed with it. There were a few posts and a few missed breakaways. It was that close to getting two points tonight.
There are a lot of good things to take away from this game and really through this trip. There are a lot of good things we can take back home with us.
On the challenge of managing the bench once down to five D following Timothy Liljegren’s injury:
Mike Van Ryn is taking care of most of that. It is a challenge. You have to manage guys’ minutes and constantly change the pairs up. It also becomes somewhat easy because it is next man up. You don’t overthink it.
With Lagesson being in tonight, it was an additional challenge to losing a defenseman. He is still kind of getting up to speed. We weren’t using him before that. I thought he did an admirable job stepping in when we needed him to play big minutes at an important time.
On whether the fatigue played a role in the too-many-men penalties:
I am going to pretend it did. One guy coming off and two guys coming on — that stuff does tend to happen when fatigue is a factor. It hasn’t been an issue for us in any other games. We will chalk it up to that.
On the PK conceding two more goals and Mark Giordano taking ownership of the 2-2 goal:
It is a work in progress for us, right? Certainly, Gio has to get that stick for us, but there are some things happening before that which allow the puck to even get into that space.
It is a work in progress. In a lot of ways, we are trying to manufacture penalty killers here. We are giving guys opportunities that they haven’t had before, whether it is Knies — who is new to the league — or other guys we have talked about who haven’t killed a lot. It is going to take some time.
The only way to get through it is to have some struggles like this. It is just part of the process.
On Ilya Samsonov’s performance:
He should feel good about it. He looked good. He looked solid. There were a few really good chances there where he looked like Sammy of last season. It is a good effort from him tonight. He did his job and gave us a chance to win the game. We just didn’t score enough for him.
On the latest on Timothy Liljegren:
It is an upper-body injury. We will get him assessed when we get back home.
