Leafs coach upset with the defense, reveals when we might get reinforcements
The Maple Leafs lost their fourth in a row last night as they fell to the Buffalo Sabres 6-4 in a game that saw them rely heavily on their top-four defensemen. T.J. Brodie, Morgan Rielly, Mark Giordano and John Klingberg all played well over twenty minutes again last night as they had been the past few games without Jake McCabe and Timothy Liljegren. The bottom pairing of William Lagesson and Max Lajoie saw far less, with Lagesson skating just over 12 minutes and Lajoie seeing under five for the entire game.
Following the game, Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe was asked why he relied so much on his top-four.
"You have to use a sixth guy more for sure, except it is hard to do that when you put him on the ice and you give up a breakaway. The coach is running the bench, and you have to earn trust when you come up, right? That is part of it. The other part is that we have run through five defensemen at times out of necessity, and we have handled it pretty well. Tonight, it may have caught up to us."
Keefe may have some reinforcements returning to the blueline sooner than later as he was able to provide an update on the injured Jake McCabe.
"He is possible for practice tomorrow."
McCabe has been out since injuring his groin just 10 seconds into his first shift against the Dallas Stars last week. Without him and Timothy Liljegren, who will be out indefinitely, Keefe has had to rely far too much on his top-four and the fatigue appeared to catch up to them tonight.
As far as the best case scenario is moving forward, that would be the Leafs getting McCabe back in time for Monday's game against Tampa and then to have Conor Timmins take huge strides forward in his recovery this week. There's also the possibility that Leafs GM Brad Treliving has been working the phones since the offseason and has his eye on a defenseman to help bolster the D corps. Worst case scenario, we see another injury occur or a setback to either of McCabe or Timmins and all of a sudden, it becomes a lot more of an issue.
| POLL | ||
NOVEMBRE 5 | 327 ANSWERS Leafs coach upset with the defense, reveals when we might get reinforcements Does Brad Treliving need to add an experienced defenseman? | ||
| Yes | 247 | 75.5 % |
| No | 15 | 4.6 % |
| Should have before the season | 65 | 19.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
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