Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 4-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets which improved the team’s record to 17-8-6.
On the importance of this response effort coming off of the 9-3 loss in Buffalo:
It was good. We wanted to go into the break feeling good, especially with how things went the other night. I was happy with how the guys responded.
On the ability to force turnovers out of the Blue Jackets up the ice:
It was just the way we worked. We wanted to stay on the hunt and make it harder on them to get out of their zone.
We saw a little bit late in the game that they do a tremendous job of generating speed and coming at you with lots of skill. We wanted to try to push them back a little bit that way.
The way that Mitch really took charge to create a turnover and apply the pressure versus retreating created the first goal for us. It got us going in the game.
On Auston Matthews’ goal-scoring tear:
It is confidence, right? Like any other player, when you get confidence, all of a sudden, it feels like you can score every other shift. When you are a guy with his ability, when he gets confident and feels it, he feels like he can score every time he touches the puck.
It is fun to watch. He has been scoring in different ways, right? Today, it is two one-timers. Guys got him the puck in really good spots. Sometimes it’s guys finding him. Sometimes it’s him going to get pucks and making it happen on his own.
It is fun to see. Today is probably as complete of a game as we have had — four lines, the penalty kill is perfect, and the power play scored us a big goal when we needed it to in order to pull away in the game. We scored a goal four-on-four and five-on-five, so all four situations.
It was a real good team win. Jones was great in net, too.
On the shorthanded goal that helped put the game away:
You are killing the penalty, so you are not really thinking about the goal as the most important thing, but it is part of what they bring. They throw the PK off-kilter a little bit when they are out there.
Auston made a couple of really good plays before the goal happened where he disrupted the play with good stick and anticipation. World-class finish and poise by Willy.
It is a big goal there, obviously. We took some penalties in the third that could’ve flipped the game. Not only did we get the job done on the kill, but to extend the lead on the kill was a nice way to put a bow on the whole event.
On whether the team made life more difficult on the opposition in terms of getting to the net:
Not perfect in that regard. We gave up a goal on the breakaway, and we gave them a second crack at it as well.
In the first period, at different times, we had trouble breaking out, which caused a little more time in our end than we’d like to see, but I thought we cleaned that up in the back half of the second and definitely in the third.
I thought we did a better job of managing the rush here today. If they had a bust, which we did at times, we pushed it to the outside pretty well.
