Maple Leafs’ Keefe faced with dizzying decisions
The list is long for Sheldon Keefe and the time is short.
The Keefe Book of Lists heading to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The great challenge for this Maple Leafs coach, under so much pressure with seven games to go in the regular season and so much to address over the next 15 days.
ITEM 1: SPECIAL TEAMS
This has been an historical problem for the Leafs under both Keefe and before him, Mike Babcock. The Leafs have not ended a playoff season with more goals scored on special teams than they’ve given up over the past seven seasons.
Babcock’s teams lost twice in seven games to Boston. In those 14 games, they gave up 14 power-play goals. They were outscored 14-7 with the man-advantage. There went those series.
Penalty killing is a huge component at playoff time. The Leafs were just 73 per cent effective down a man last playoff season. That’s a losing number.
Against Boston years back, they were 67 per cent and 56 per cent while down a player. That’s embarrassingly bad. Only against that Montreal team the Leafs had no business losing to were the Leafs acceptable at all killing penalties.
Leafs penalty killing started this season terribly and has been quite effective lately. What Keefe and his staff, primarily assistant coach Dean Chynoweth, need to determine is exactly who the first pair of forwards and the first pair of defencemen is on every penalty kill and who comes after that.
In seven post-seasons, the Leafs have been outscored 37-27 on the power play. That’s how you lose sevengame series the way they lost to Boston twice and Montreal once and to Tampa Bay another time.
At the other end of the spectrum is the Toronto power play. With Auston Matthews, an eventually
healthy Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly, there is absolutely no reason why the Leafs shouldn’t succeed with the man-advantage.
ITEM 2: GOALTENDING
The team’s best penalty killer, cliches say, is the starting goaltender.
Which is an area Keefe needs to be clear about heading to playoffs.
Old coaches will tell you if you have two goaltenders it means you don’t really have one. If you have to guess which goalie is going to start, you don’t have the right goalie. In this case, Keefe hasn’t really had to make a decision. It’s been made for him.
Ilya Samsonov’s play, erratic as it was in the first half of the season, has settled in rather nicely in the second half.
Samsonov has won the starting job for now.
ITEM 3: DEFENCE PAIRINGS
This is the jigsaw puzzle that sits on Keefe’s desk and the pieces don’t fit together.
Of all the challenges facing Keefe, this may be the greatest and most difficult to solve. And the most dependent on coaching decisions and determinations.
After Rielly, who tends to pick up his play at playoff time, what does Keefe have at his disposal?
Most successful NHL teams rely on their top four defencemen come playoff time. They overplay the first two pairs and pick and choose when the third pair plays.
The Leafs have Rielly and then what? TJ Brodie used to be dependable. Jake Mccabe should be dependable but isn’t always. Timothy Liljegren drifts in and out, game to game and week to week.
There may not be a top four in that group.
Then there are the fifth and sixth and seventh defencemen — Simon Benoit, who the Leafs need to find a place for; the trade deadline pickups, Joel Edmundson and Ilya Lyubushkin; NHL’S oldest player, Mark Giordano; the occasionally used Connor
Timmins.
This is Keefe’s new math: Nine does not divide neatly by six. The coach likes to call it blueline by committee. That’s Coachspeak for not having the right players.
ITEM 4: CREATING HIS LINES, IN PARTICULAR A THIRD LINE
Third lines tend to matter big in the playoffs. Often, the first lines cancel themselves, especially if they’re playing head-to-head. The same with second lines.
But Tampa won two Stanley Cups and had great production from the Yanni Gourde line and last year Vegas won with William Karlsson starring at centre. Pittsburgh won consecutive Cups with Phil Kessel scoring large on the third line and Lars Eller was enormous the year Washington won the Cup.
So what does Keefe do?
If he starts with Matthews and Marner and maybe Tyler Bertuzzi, that’s one line. Then if he goes with Tavares, Nylander and maybe Matthew Knies, that’s another line. That leaves him options for Line 3.
What about Max Domi centring Calle Jarnkrok and Bobby Mcmann?
That gives him some size, some speed, some offence, some physical play, some options.