Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 4-1 loss to the Boston Bruins which dropped the team’s record to 35-18-8.
On the Bruins bringing their best effort:
They are a premier team in the league. Every night that you play them, you are in for a tough night. It was exactly what we expected in that sense.
On his team’s overall performance and where it could’ve been better:
I loved our start. In the first six minutes — right up until we got our power play — I liked a lot about our game. The ice was titled their way.
We didn’t get a lot in terms of scoring chances, but it takes time to generate chances against this team. They don’t make many mistakes. You have to really earn your opportunities. I thought we had a good process in place to do that. We had a lot of time on their half of the ice. We earned a power play.
Our power play struggled to get in on their entries, creating a little bit of frustration there. And then they took it to us. They gained momentum there off of their shorthanded chances. I thought they grabbed a hold of the game for a period of time there and scored. They got their power play, and they scored. Special teams are a big factor in the first period.
I thought our second period was excellent. Again, I thought we carried the play. We had the puck a lot and spent a lot of time on their half of the ice.
They scored their third goal, and just 10 seconds before they scored, Bobby McMann had basically the exact same shot off of an entry on the same play. It is a kick-middle drive wide. I thought our shot was more wide-open than theirs was. It doesn’t go in for us. Their guy makes good and it goes in for them, which sort of tells some of the story on the night.
Boston played hard. They defended their net extremely well. I thought they were better than us in that area for sure.
When they make good on their chances and we don’t make good on ours, you tend to overanalyze the game and over-emphasize the negative. We did a lot of good things today, but you can’t just do good things and expect to beat a team like Boston. You have to do great things. You have to be ultra-competitive. You have to be great on special teams. A lot of things need to line up. There weren’t enough of those for us tonight.
On the difficulty of making up ground on the leaders in the Atlantic Division:
It is hard. Nothing new for us. The division has been great. Some of the teams have changed spots a little bit, but obviously, with Detroit’s emergence, it is hard.
We can’t focus on that too much. We just have to focus on our own game and collect as many points as we can. Clearly, we failed in that regard tonight.
On what is clicking for the McMann – Tavares – Jarnkrok line:
It is hard to say. Bobby had a little bit of a dip in his game, but it has come back up. Jarnkrok has come in fresh and has given the group a boost. John has just played extremely well. He has played a good, honest game and has waited for his opportunities while also really pushing things on offense. It was good to see him get another goal tonight.
Against New York, Tavares gets one that goes off of his body, but that is the kind of goal that he and his line earned by being relentless on the puck. If there is one trait of that line that you like, it is how relentless they are. They hound the puck. Jarny hounds the puck. John hounds the puck. Bobby McMann is really doing that well.
To that end, you like those elements.
On Joseph Woll’s performance:
I thought he was fine. Four is too many, but they defended their net better than we defended ours tonight. The quality of chances that we gave up was a little more challenging than theirs with the exception of the example I gave on the third goal. We had a great chance. Their goalie gets a glove on it. We give one up right after and it goes in our net.
With the exception of that, I thought Joseph battled. We have to get him going. We have to get him more games before we really start critiquing him, but I don’t think he was an issue for us tonight.
