Sheldon Keefe addressed the media after the Maple Leafs’ 3-1 win over the Seattle Kraken which improved the team’s record to 23-14-8.
On Ilya Samsonov’s first win since mid-December:
He just looked confident and prepared for whatever was going to come at him. He didn’t get a lot of work tonight, but that sometimes is even harder. You get long gaps between them, so you have to really stay focused.
He was great. If you look at that third-period save he made, it was his first shot of the period that he faced. It was over 10 minutes of game time with no shots and then he had to make a big save.
I thought he was excellent. A few huge saves in the second period as well. Tremendous job from him, and I am really happy for him.
It has been a tough road for him, but he has worked extremely hard. As I had alluded to before the game, to me, it had felt all week that he was back to himself. Today was certainly a good indication of that.
On the team limiting the Kraken to just 17 shots:
I thought we had the puck a lot tonight. Except for a few times in the second period, I thought we managed it really well. Because we had the puck a lot, it really helped us.
Guys defended and checked hard when we needed to. At times, when we had breakdowns, we recovered really well with good sticks or bodies in lanes.
That was what I liked. There was a chunk of the second period that got a little too wide open, and with a lead, it was not to our advantage. We had to tighten that up in the third, which I thought we did a tremendous job of.
On Nick Robertson’s return to the lineup:
I thought Nick was excellent tonight. It was what I was hoping for with him and Timmins coming in. It has been not just a long trip but it has been a tough stretch of games for us for the last while. It was important to get some fresh legs and energy in here today.
With Nick, in particular, you know he is going to give you everything he has. At a time when we haven’t used him on the trip, he is going to have more in the tank than anyone else.
With it being so tight a game, it was a little bit harder to get him on out on the ice. His minutes probably reflected that, but I liked every second that he played on the ice. He did a tremendous job, and not just because he scored a goal. How he worked and how he managed the puck was a really good effort from him.
All of our young guys today… I thought Robertson was excellent. I thought Holmberg was excellent. Matthew Knies was terrific. He showed signs last night that he was coming back with his game. That is why we put him back with Matthews. I thought he was tremendous tonight, too.
On Simon Benoit’s performance:
He just keeps getting better and better and better. It is fun to watch. He is a guy who has put in a ton of work. He put some good shots at the net tonight, too.
Physical, competitive, a presence for us, a big part of the penalty kill which did a good job for us tonight. Benny has been tremendous and very consistent.
On how the top line set the tone:
They did a tremendous job. On a back-to-back, their minutes are probably a little higher than I wanted them to be, but they were playing so well and also because of the way the matchups were going, they were matching pretty heavily against him, which was keeping some of their better offensive people off of the ice. That just encouraged me to play him more.
There were good chunks of time where Matthew Knies was really driving things and contributing to that line. Obviously, it was a big-time goal by Auston coming off of a big-time feed by Mitch to get us going in the game.
More importantly, I thought that line and the Tavares line… John was just excellent tonight. Those guys really carried the play.
When you talk about us suppressing shots, I thought all of our guys defended really well but I thought our best people really drove play and kept people away from the net.
On whether John Tavares’ slowed production is going to turn around soon:
No doubt, it is going to come for him.
More important than whatever the goals, assists and points might be: John hasn’t cheated for one second. He is not concerned about it.
John is at a point in his career — as a captain and as a leader on our team — where he knows what is important. He needs to play the right way. He needs to take care of the puck. He needs to have good habits and details.
For a guy who hasn’t had the production and is getting questions about it, just staying with it and not cheating the system or extending his shifts allows us to be in a position to win a game 2-1 as we did tonight.
I do think the results are going to come, but most importantly for me, John is setting an example for our team. It doesn’t matter what his individual stats say. While he is fighting through it, he is not going to cheat the team or the system.
On the takeaways from the 2-2-0 West Coast road trip:
We have talked throughout the year about how we’ve been a resilient group, right? We have had lots of comebacks and have stayed with it.
We talked this morning about tonight’s game being one that — from my perspective — was a little bit reflective of how the trip has gone for us. We have had leads. At times, we needed to close games, take care of the games, and finish the games. It was the same mindset. We needed to finish the trip well.
We are tired. It was a long trip. We played last night. Now, you have to be mentally tough to stay with it and grind out one more game. Both in how we played the game and how we finished our team, it was fitting that it was 2-1 going into the third. It was challenging us again to show how we could manage these situations.
With the exception of maybe one or two mistakes, it was a pretty textbook third period with the lead.
