Sheldon Keefe absolutely rips his team after last night's loss
The Toronto Maple Leafs opened up the 2022-2023 campaign against their rival Montreal Canadiens. Many will blame the early season kinks for the 4-3 blown-lead loss to the Habs but head coach Sheldon Keefe was having none of it.
Dropping points to a lesser roster, is never a good thing whether its game 1 or game 62. This could negatively effect Toronto when April comes around.
Too many careless minor penalties, being reckless in their own end and poor decision making were all reasons for the defeat.
Defender Jake Muzzin was guilty of brutal giveaway in the final 20 seconds. The veteran's clearing attempt smacked the tape of Nick Suzuki, who fed Anderson for the one-timed winner.
The pairing of Muzzin and Justin Holl just doesn't work anymore. Keefe has tried enough times to rekindle the magic from his first season.
Watching the game last night I felt the bottom six had a rough night. The 3rd line of Pierre Engvall, Alex Kerfoot and Calle Jarnkrok weren't an effective shut down line.
If I was in Keefe's position I would put the bottom two lines in a blender and come out with something like this:
Kerfoot - Kampf - Jarnkrok
Aston-Reese - Engvall - Aube-Kubel
Putting Kampf's defensive presence on the third line makes that more of a shutdown line and have the fourth line as pure forechecking madness, with Engvall's speed added.
The good thing for the Leafs is they don't have to sit on that loss for very long. They are back in action tonight hosting the Washington Capitals. Puck drop is 7:30 PM.
| POLL | ||
If your Sheldon Keefe are you breaking up the Holl/Muzzin pair for tonight's game? | ||
| Yes, don't ever put them back together | 70 | 54.7 % |
| No, options are limited until Liljegren is back | 31 | 24.2 % |
| Yes, please do something else | 27 | 21.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
