Maple Leafs anxious to join playoff wars
Call the past few nights mustsee TV for Sheldon Keefe and the Toronto Maple Leafs, though they’re getting a bit sick of spectating from the couch.
The first three nights of intense playoff action saw lead changes, overtimes, some crease crashing and a couple of scraps, while the Leafs and Montreal Canadiens are still waiting to get their series underway, starting tonight at Scotiabank Arena.
“That anticipation just grows, and now that you’re watching the other series up and going, you want to play that much more,” Toronto coach Keefe said Tuesday.
Keefe kept his players away from the ice on the fourth of six days of their break. The Leafs-habs will be the last of the NHL’S eight first round series to launch. That’s even more time to perfect the game plan on both sides. And in the Leafs’ case, to endure even more chirping from outside about their four failed recent attempts to get through the opening round, the last one with Keefe in charge.
“I don’t sense that pressure at all,” Keefe insisted. “Our team recognizes the opportunity we have and we believe in our group. The nice thing about our team is that you know what you’re working towards, but you’re having fun doing it.”
Keefe cited the laid-back Joe Thornton’s early season comments about what was then a training camp mixed with survivors and newcomers. Toronto proceeded to wire-to-wire winners of the North Division, without the mid or late-season slide that cost it home-ice advantage or seeding in previous campaigns.
“(Joe said) ‘I have no stress, man. I really don’t,’” Keefe recalled. “That sums up our team. Our group realizes this is a different team.”
SPECIAL TEAMS TIME
Toronto’s extra work out time has been geared in part to fix its power play, which finished the regular season 6-for-71. That its primary weapons are Rocket Richard Trophy winner Auston Matthews, creative Mitch Marner and proven scorers John Tavares, William Nylander and Thornton make its continual misfires all the more mystifying.
Keefe and assistant Manny Malhotra’s latest gambit is to lean away from a stacked No. 1 unit, with Matthews and Marner now fed from down low by Thornton with Zach Hyman as the net presence, while Nylander and Tavares front the other unit.