Sheldon Keefe hints at how he plans to deploy his goaltenders down the stretch leading up to the playoffs
The Leafs had a couple of days off between games following a 3-2 OT loss to the Florida Panthers on Wednesday, but were back at practice on Friday before they travel to Ottawa to take on the Senators on Saturday night for Hockey Night in Canada.
Ilya Samsonov was largely very good against the Panthers and held them to just 1 goal until the 19:01 mark of the 3rd period before allowing the game-tying goal on a wild high tip from Sam Reinhart. Matt Murray, on the other hand, has been playing decent hockey for the most part but allowing 1 or 2 too many goals in many of his starts of late.
We often have a pretty good indicator of which goalie will play which game, but following practice on Friday, Sheldon Keefe revealed that he would not confirm to the media as to who the team plans to start against Ottawa on Saturday and Detroit on Sunday.
Keefe did, however, indicate that he wanted to try to get Samsonov's confidence up on the road and Murray's confidence up at home, since they've each largely thrived in the opposite area. Based on that comment, it's likely that we see Samsonov get the nod tomorrow night in Ottawa and Murray get Sunday's start in Toronto against the Red Wings.
| POLL | ||
MARS 31 | 209 ANSWERS Sheldon Keefe hints at how he plans to deploy his goaltenders down the stretch leading up to the playoffs If the playoffs started today, who would you select to be the Leafs' starter? | ||
| Samsonov | 171 | 81.8 % |
| Murray | 26 | 12.4 % |
| Woll | 12 | 5.7 % |
| List of polls | ||
