Leafs coach Keefe calls "elite players" out after aggravating loss to Arizona

In the grand scheme of things, one early season 4-2 loss to the Arizona Coyotes in October probably won’t sink the Toronto Maple Leafs’ season.

But Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe knows that his team hasn’t quite been playing to their potential, either.

Toronto’s now dropped games to teams ranked 31st (Montreal) and 32nd (Arizona) in last year’s standings, while squeaking out a 3-2 win against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, a team that finished not much higher at 26th overall a year ago.

Safe to say, the Leafs haven’t quite yet looked like the Stanley Cup contender many expected them to be through their first four games.

Though it seemed for a moment they’d tied the game up at 3-3 in the final minute of the third period, a video review ultimately saw Toronto’s equalizer disallowed, with Toronto falling to 2-2-0 on the season.

And while he didn’t mention them by name, Keefe seemed to be quite pointed in his criticism of Toronto’s top-end forward talents in John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and Auston Matthews in his post-game comments.

“When you really look at it, the difference between us and Arizona is that we have elite players. Our elite players didn’t play like elite players today,” Keefe said following Monday night’s loss. “They couldn’t make the difference. In that sense, the game is going to be close. That is the way it goes when those guys don’t make the difference that they can.”

Outside of William Nylander, no Leafs player has had more than a single goal through the team’s first four games.

“Is there an area to improve? There are a lot of areas to improve. We are only four games in,” Keefe added. “The guys haven’t found their rhythm. Our best people have not found their rhythm.”

In his first start of the season, Erik Källgren let in three goals on 18 shots on net. Splitting the duties with Ilya Samsonov, Källgren could be playing significantly more games in the near future, with Matt Murray listed out for a month with an adductor injury suffered during a morning skate on Saturday.

Likely looking ahead at a few hard practices, the Leafs have a couple of days to let the loss marinate, before hosting the Dallas Stars on Thursday. Puck drop for that game is set for 7 pm ET at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.

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