Sheldon Keefe rips the Leafs to shreds after loss to Sabres
The Leafs went into Wednesday night's game against the Buffalo Sabres just 2 points back of the Tampa Bay Lightning and 1 point back of the Florida Panthers in the Atlantic Division race. Unfortunately for the Buds, they came out of that game without anything to show for it and now the Panthers and Bolts both have games in hand on the Leafs.
Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe was less than enthused with the effort put forth by his club and did not hold back during his post-game media scrum. Earlier this season, Keefe called the Leafs "soft and purposeless", and his comments on Wednesday appeared to communicate a similar message.
«It was terrible from start to finish. In terms of how we played with the puck, we were really careless and didn't have much happening. Offensively, we were abysmal. All four lines."
Keefe has not had much of a reason to talk about the Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and Michael Bunting line of late, other than to praise their efforts. Wednesday night, that was a different story and even the team's top line was an issue for the bench boss.
"That's as bad as they've played in quite some time."
-Keefe on the Matthews line's performance on Wednesday
-Keefe on the Matthews line's performance on Wednesday
The team's top defensive pairing of Morgan Rielly and Rasmus Sandin was also a problem in Keefe's eyes. When asked if he'd try the pairing out again, his very blunt response told the whole story.
"Probably not."
The Leafs have made it a habit of playing down to their opponent, which is a very concerning trend - one that Keefe is aware of and one that the team will have to snap out of if they hope to have any shot of winning the Atlantic Division and entering the postseason with home ice advantage.
With the win over the Leafs last night, the Sabres have snapped a 6-game losing skid. For the Leafs, their loss ended a 3-game win streak. The Buds will play host to the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena. Let's hope their second game back in front of 100% capacity will end up better than the first.
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