Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe RIPS the officials, provides update on injured G Petr Mrazek

The Toronto Maple Leafs dropped to 1-1 on the young 2021-22 NHL Season, falling to their provincial rival Ottawa Senators last night at Canadian Tire Centre by a 3-2 final score. 

But it was what happened near the end of the contest that had the Leafs and their head coach up in arms. Captain John Tavares was penalized on what could be described as an extremely marginal hooking call with 42 seconds remaining, as he lifted the stick of Senators forward Connor Brown who was attempting to shoot towards the vacant Leafs net. 

Toronto's comeback hopes ended after that. And Sheldon Keefe made his thoughts on the call clear - he wasn't a fan. 

"We've seen the memos on the crosschecks and the guys are well aware of that and they're adjusting to that, but I haven’t seen the memos on not being able to lift guys' sticks, that's new," Keefe said. "I don't think that's going to be the standard moving forward, but that's early in the season for everybody."

Meanwhile, the loss on the scoresheet wasn't the only setback of the evening. Goaltender Petr Mrazek, who was making his Maple Leafs debut after signing a free-agent deal during the offseason, injured his groin late in the second period and didn't return to the game; he was replaced by Jack Campbell. 

So far, there's been no word on the exact extent of the injured goaltender, who stopped 23 of the 26 shots that he faced.

"I don’t have an update at all other than he wasn’t able to finish the game tonight," Keefe said.

It was another slow start for the Leafs against the Senators, who took advantage of defensive miscues by their guests and immediately put them into a hole on the scoreboard. 

Today’s start wasn’t remotely in the same category last night’s. In yesterday’s start, we gave up Grade-A scoring chances and odd-man rushes and all of that. I don’t see it that way at all for us in terms of our start," Keefe said. "They were outshooting us early on, but I think they had six point shots out of their first seven shots — nothing dangerous."

"We gifted them a goal, so we make that big mistake. They got a power-play goal where they wristed one in from the point like we did 50 times tonight. One hits a body and goes in — 2-0 — and then we give them another gift at the end of the period."