Sheldon Keefe, Toronto Maple Leafs practice
Sheldon Keefe, Toronto Maple Leafs practice
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After Wednesday’s practice, Sheldon Keefe discussed Tyler Bertuzzi’s dry spell offensively, the status of his injured and sick players, and TJ Brodie’s play on the left side vs. St. Louis.

Practice Lines – Feb. 14

When a player such as Tyler Bertuzzi is getting his looks and generating chances but it is not falling for him, what can you do as a coach? Do you talk to him and reassure him it is eventually going to fall?

Keefe: A couple of things.

You do bet it is going to fall. You encourage him because he is getting the chances. To me, he has played good hockey. You don’t get those types of chances if you are not playing good hockey and doing good things.

Also, he has made good things happen. I go back to the Ottawa game, and he set Tavares up for a couple of grade-A opportunities in the first period with his forecheck and his disruption there. Defensively, he has done a great job for us. He has done a lot of little things very well that don’t show up on the scoresheet, and he is getting the chances. That is very encouraging.

At the same time, as I discussed with him, he has to work on his game. He has to practice. He has to shoot with purpose. He has to take every rep in practice and have it be meaningful.

Quite honestly, it is not just a this-season thing. It is last season as well. His pace is not a whole lot different than where he was a season ago. You are trying to get him back closer to the 30-goal Bertuzzi. We haven’t been able to do that. It has more been what it was last season.

Be encouraged by the chances that you are getting, but also value every second that you get in a practice to be prepared for those moments. We have to push him while also encouraging him.

The 30-goal Bertuzzi probably saw more power-play time. You have a lot of great options on the power play, but do you consider giving him more looks?

Keefe: It is part of it for sure. We have discussed that. However, we also have other guys we have to get going. John Tavares had to get going. He was our most productive power-play guy for the last little bit as we were starting to have those discussions.

You are managing that, and it is part of the deal here. At the same time, over the course of his career, I would disagree in that the power play has not been a big driver of his offense. Maybe there is some confidence in the touches that come through that, but his stats have been primarily five-on-five driven. That is not a whole lot different here in this situation.

I think he can bear down on those opportunities and be a guy who is really pushing for those minutes rather than us just trying to hand them to him.

Timothy Liljegren didn’t like the way he played the St. Louis goal, but what did you like from the pairing with Liljegren and Brodie last night?

Keefe: I liked the pair. Brodie, in particular, fared very well on the left side. His touches on the breakout were much cleaner and he seemed to have a lot more confidence on that side.

Liljegren had some tough moments in the game at different times, but overall, I thought he did a lot of good things. There were a number of good things as you went through the shifts that were very positive for him.

You want to keep building on that.

For the players who are under the weather, do you have an update as to their status? Is William Nylander part of the sick group?

Keefe: I don’t have an update there. They are not feeling well enough to have it make sense to have them come in today. We will just monitor them through the day, they’ll try to get some food down, and we will see where they are at tomorrow.

Willy is part of the group, yes.

Morgan Rielly was a placeholder on the top-line RW in practice, but are you ever curious as to what he could do there?

Keefe: I actually thought that if we changed his number, no one would notice. We needed to fill that position with 11 forwards and seven defensemen. It just helps us get the practice going.

It helps him get some touches and all of those kinds of things. Maybe something different kind of breaks up this period of time for him. It is something different and new.

How do you manage this period of time with Rielly now that he will miss five games? Is it about trying to keep him fresh, or is he working on skills?

Keefe: Because of the nature of what has been happening behind the scenes with the whole situation, we haven’t had a lot of discussions about it. It has been on my mind. If he is not going to be playing, how can we manage him? He plays a lot of minutes for us.

We have chosen, to this point, to keep him going and keep him on the ice while we are uncertain as to how his situation is going to play out. But I do think it warrants a discussion in terms of how to manage him going forward here given how much he plays for us and how much we are going to need him down the stretch — plus the fact that he didn’t have the same type of break the others had given his participation in the All-Star Game.

We will get to all of that stuff in time.

Joseph Woll always seems to be really grounded and centered. How do you think it has helped him get through this period?

Keefe: The greatest development for Joseph has been the mental side of things. You are seeing that with what he is going through now. We saw it with how he managed his previous injury.

A season ago, he missed training camp. He missed the preseason. He missed the start of the season and the start in the American league. He came up to the NHL after dominating the American league, and he really hasn’t looked back since then.

He has always had the athleticism and all of that, but the mental side — the maturity of him as a man and how he manages his day-to-day as a professional — has been the greatest area of growth for him. It makes you feel confident he can manage whatever he is going through.

Is there a sense of when Woll might be ready to come back?

Keefe: I don’t have a sense of that yet. It was another good practice day for him. We are taking it a day at a time and communicating with him about how he is feeling. I think he continues to feel better and better each day.

In terms of participating in games, he is getting to the point where we can have those discussions and start to map it out a little bit. Tre has been a little distracted here of late, so we haven’t had a chance to really nail down some of these things, but I think we are getting close there.

Of course, the Jones situation is also a factor here in terms of how the plan may need to be changed or adapted in terms of how we projected it out a couple of weeks ago.

Is there clarity on Martin Jones’ situation?

Keefe: Today, he felt comfortable going on the ice to give it a test run this morning. He skated before the practice group. That was positive.

I haven’t gotten a whole lot of a report in terms of how he felt, but he didn’t do a lot today. It was more trying to stay up and running, but certainly, he is not ready to really push himself at this point.

It is just a situation that is day-to-day and they have to keep on top of it.

Would you consider giving Dennis Hildeby a start?

Keefe: We will see how this week progresses. Between Hildeby, Woll, and Jones, a lot is happening at the goaltending position. The schedule — this week, especially — is pretty favourable as it relates to goaltending and Samsonov.

We will take it a day at a time and get all of the information we can as the games approach. Samsonov will go tomorrow.

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