Sheldon Keefe calls out Leafs defense and goaltending

The Toronto Maple Leafs were unable to get it done last night at Scotiabank Arena against the visiting Seattle Kraken, as they took it to their former captain in Mark Giordano in the form of a 5-1 victory. The upstart Kraken remain in second place in the NHL's central division in just their second year of existence after handily missing last season's Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

And afterward, it was obvious that Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe was a bit less than pleased with his defense and goaltending.

"We need to get a big save from him, right? We need to get a big save there," he said of starting goalie Matt Murray. 

"If you look at the first one, he doesn’t get much action at all, and on the power play, there is not a lot happening," he continued. "He is reading the release one way, and it goes off of Gio’s shinpad and in.  Even the second one, he is screened on that one with a guy coming through. There are some funny goals going in there, but just as we needed our players in the first period to make a big play and take control of the game, we need the goaltender to make a big save to get us going and give us life. We didn’t get that."

"Those are the kinds of things that stand out about the game, but as I said, there is a lot to like about our first period. If we play like that, a lot of nights, we take control of games and don’t look back. Today, we let them hang around. We paid for it."

And Keefe was sure to include the rest of the blue line in his postgame comments as well, singling out their performance as not what he wanted.

"You can’t give up a breakaway," he said. "You can’t give up a two-on-one in the third period. Aside from that, I thought we were fine."

"We made some big mistakes. The breakaway is a big mistake. The game is already 2-1. You can’t make that mistake. It is one we would like to have back."