Leafs coach Keefe calls team's defensive breakdown "peewee stuff"
There are certain nights where Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe is rather complimentary of his players despite a losing result.
Monday night wasn’t one of them.
Following a 3-2 loss to the New York Islanders at Scotiabank Arena, the Toronto coach was quite vocal about how his team let a winnable game slip away. One of the key moments in the contest came midway through the second period, where Islanders forward Kyle MacLean got in behind Toronto’s defence for a breakaway shortly after coming out of the penalty box.
Keefe was asked if he thought it being the team’s first game coming off the NHL All-Star break helped contribute to a defensive breakdown on MacLean’s goal.
First NHL goal for Kyle MacLean! 🚨
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— NHL (@NHL) February 6, 2024
But Keefe wasn’t exactly buying that theory.
“It has nothing to do with the point in the year. This is the National Hockey League. That is peewee stuff,” Keefe said. “It has nothing to do with the season or anything like that. If you play on the power play in the National Hockey League, they should not get behind you coming out of the penalty box.”
Toronto was eventually able to recover and tie the game up with 4:48 in the third period by way of a John Tavares goal, but former Leaf Pierre Engvall ended up scoring the winning goal a little over two minutes later.
In a follow-up question, Keefe added that he felt the Leafs gave the Islanders two easy goals that were the difference maker on the evening.
“As I said, we played well enough to win the game, but we did just enough to lose. The second and third goals are gifts. You can’t give gifts when the goalie is playing the way that he is at the other end. Goals are so hard to come by. You battle your way back to tie the game. You can’t do that — not if you want to win games,” he added.
The Leafs return to action Wednesday night when they host the Dallas Stars at 7 pm ET.