'It's A Chance For Me To Hold Them Accountable' Why Sheldon Keefe Benched His Top Maple Leafs During One of Their Power Plays Against the Jets
After giving up a 2-on-0 opportunity in their first shot at it, Toronto's head coach sent a message to his core.
Nick Turchiaro-USA TODAY Sports - 'It's A Chance For Me To Hold Them Accountable' Why Sheldon Keefe Benched His Top Maple Leafs During One of Their Power Plays Against the JetsThe Toronto Maple Leafs were able to escape with a 1-0 overtime victory against the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday, thanks in most part to the 32-save performance of goaltender Ilya Samsonov.
But things could have turned out quite differently.
During Toronto's first power-play of the game, Toronto was caught flat-footed in the middle of a line change. It resulted in a 2-on-0 opportunity for Winnipeg's Morgan Barron and Adam Lowry.
Samsonov made a couple of spectacular saves in the situation to bail the Leafs out. But that wasn't enough for Keefe to forgive the transgressions of his top power play forwards consisting of stars Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares.
Keefe could be seen on the Sportsnet broadcast yelling obscenities at his players who had returned to the bench at that point.
Later in the period, Winnipeg's Brenden Dillon was assessed a minor penalty for high-sticking Noah Gregor. In that situation, Keefe went away from his normal playbook and went with his second power-play unit (consisting of Conor Timmins, Max Domi, Matthew Knies, Calle Jarnkrok and Nick Robertson, for the entire two minutes.
"They make a mistake in that spot and it’s a chance for me to hold them accountable and get some of the other guys involved to go out and do a better job for us," Keefe said of the move. "But as we all know those guys have been excellent for us and carry the mail a lot of times for us."
The players affected agreed.
"To give that up, especially on a power play on a play like that, it’s unacceptable," Marner said. "A bit of everything. probably out too long, a miscommunication. We take ownership of that. Thank god for 35 (Samsonov) in there.
Matthews, who scored the lone goal in the team's victory, agreed.
"Honestly that play shouldn’t happen," he said. "We have to play better in those situations. That’s on us. We’ve got to do better. We will be better."
The Leafs had three power-play chances that followed that particular instance but were unable to capitalize on any of them, going 0-for-5 on the night.
Will the benching be enough to help Toronto out of their recent special teams funk? They are 1-for-20 with the man advantage over their last eight games.
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