Analysts react to Keefe's comments following Samsonov being pulled against Tampa
On October 21st, the Leafs played the Tampa Bay Lighting and Ilya Samsonov was pulled after giving up 3 goals on 4 shots, but with solid play in relief, Joseph Woll backstopped the Leafs to a 4-3 win in overtime. Following that game, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe called out Samsonov's poor play and a couple of days later, prior to his start against Nashville, Samsonov admitted that he was not in a good place mentally.
On Monday, following another poor showing in the first period, Samsonov was pulled in favour of Woll again, who backstopped the Leafs to a 6-5 overtime win against the same Tampa Bay Lightning. When Keefe was asked about Samsonov's performance post-game this time, he took a different approach and defended the netminder.
Yesterday on Sportsnet's "The Real Kyper and Bourne" show, Nick Kypreos reacted to Keefe's change in demeanor.
He continued by asking if it was the right move and also took a bit of a jab at Samsonov for the way he handled being pulled.
Keefe is trying to find a middle ground with how to approach Samsonov right now, but Kypreos is fair to ask if Keefe flip-flopping on how he handles Samsonov could be more detrimental than beneficial to him. What isn't fair from Kypreos is to tell Samsonov to "sit down and be a pro" and calling the helmet smash "unacceptable". When the Ottawa Senators pulled Joonas Korpisalo the other night and he threw his blocker down the tunnel, Kypreos didn't say anything about that. I don't know about you, but I would rather see a guy break a stick or something than just take his stuff off and act like nothing happened. At least you know he cares. Either way, hopefully Samsonov is able to figure things out, but it might be time to give Woll a string of starts to let Samsonov take his time in fixing the details of his game
| POLL | ||
NOVEMBRE 8 | 318 ANSWERS Analysts react to Keefe's comments following Samsonov being pulled against Tampa Does Woll need to carry the load of starts for the Leafs right now to let Samsonov figure things out? | ||
| Yes | 257 | 80.8 % |
| No, use them both | 61 | 19.2 % |
| List of polls | ||
