TORONTO — Hours before he ended David Kämpf’s consecutive games-played streak at 323 games in late December, Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe explained that things were about to change for his team.
“The tolerance for the same types of mistakes that are happening,” Keefe said, “is going to be a lot less, and needs to be a lot less if we don’t see improvement.”
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About two weeks later, Keefe became maybe the first coach ever to bench John Tavares, sitting the captain and Tyler Bertuzzi for most of the third period in a game against Colorado. Keefe went further still on Wednesday night, sitting Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander for an entire second-period power play.
The rationale for the move was obvious: The Leafs’ No. 1 power-play unit, scuffling of late, had permitted a two-on-nothing rush to come Ilya Samsonov’s way.
Samsonov made both stops in his best performance of the season. But that wasn’t the point.
“Obviously not good enough,” Marner said afterward when asked about the message behind the benching. “We know that. We’ve been here for a long time. To give that up, especially on a power play, in a game like that, it’s unacceptable.”
Asked if he’d ever seen a play like that before, Matthews added, “No, because honestly that play shouldn’t happen.”
“That’s on us,” he said. “We’ve got to be better. We will be better.”
Keefe's reaction to the top unit causing the 2-on-0 pic.twitter.com/SXXXnKLQwV
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) January 25, 2024
Keefe started PP2 on the power play that came next, and then followed that group up with Pontus Holmberg, Noah Gregor, Timothy Liljegren and two PP1 members, John Tavares and Morgan Rielly.
No Matthews. No Marner. No Nylander.
The Leafs got another power play not long after and the second unit started that one too, though this time, Keefe allowed the full top group to reassemble soon after.
“Obviously they make a mistake in that spot,” Keefe said. “It’s a chance for me to hold them accountable and get some other guys involved.”
“Those guys,” he added of the team’s three biggest stars, “have been excellent for us and they’ve carried the mail a lot of times for us.”
This was an attempt at downplaying the whole thing, and obviously he’s right in that Matthews and Nylander especially, have performed greatly this season. But clearly, something has changed in the last month. An effort, evidently, from the Leafs coach to make this group more accountable than it’s been.
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These moments are significant because they’ve not happened before, not under Keefe.
Kämpf had never been scratched as a Leaf. Tavares had never been benched. The power play has had bad games before but has never been pinned to the bench for it.
As Keefe said in December, the “tolerance” for that kind of thing “is going to be a lot less.”
This is all happening at a time when it feels like the pressure on the Leafs, and their coach especially, is rising.
This team is on pace for 100 points. The playoffs don’t feel like a sure thing. The roster is obviously flawed and in need of upgrades, but Keefe can only make do with what he’s got. Which means pushing every button possible, which means now benching even the stars to get a message across.
His team responded, sort of, after the benching, winning the game 1-0 in OT on Matthews’ 39th goal in 45 games. The Jets, minus Mark Scheifele, Gabriel Vilardi, and for most of the game, Josh Morrissey, still won 70 percent of the expected goals overall and dominated early.
It took a heroic effort from Samsonov to procure two points.
“He made a lot of big saves for us,” Marner said. “It wasn’t a great game by our team.”
Keefe wondered if all the January travel, including two trips out west, had caught up to his team. “We were not ourselves today.”
The Samsonov comeback arc
Samsonov gave up six goals in Columbus on Dec. 29. Two days later, the Leafs placed him on waivers. When he cleared, the Leafs assigned him to the Marlies, but not really. He wouldn’t practise or play in the AHL. He would spend the week (the Leafs were away in California) working mostly with Marlies coach Hannu Toivonen “and get him out of the environment he was in,” GM Brad Treliving said.
“It’s a physical and a mental reset,” Treliving explained, “where can he get away from preparing for the next game and all the pressures that come with it.”
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The Leafs felt they had to try something different.
Samsonov rejoined the team when they returned from California, but still wasn’t a sure thing to play on Jan. 14 on the second night of a back-to-back against Detroit. The team thought long and hard about rolling out AHL rookie Dennis Hildeby. That’s how dire this thing was. The start went to Samsonov, who played OK in a losing effort. He was better than OK a week later in beating a hobbled Kraken team in Seattle.
Then, this 32-save gem against Winnipeg.
“Perfect,” Keefe said of Samsonov’s performance. “Just another building block for him where he just looks confident as ever.”
It’s been quite the turnaround for a goalie who was quite literally out of the league only a few weeks ago. Things still feel somewhat fragile for him.
“I don’t want to think about this too much,” Samsonov said when asked about his level of confidence at the moment.
“I’ve been in those moments as well and it’s not fun,” Marner said. “Everyone’s against you really. Everyone is coming at you at all different angles and thinking you’re not good enough. For him to fight through that and come back as he has and played as well as he has and won us the last couple games in net … it just shows how mentally strong he is.”
It’s still early in the comeback effort. Samsonov still has to show that he can respond positively when adversity strikes, when one bad goal and then two bad goals beat him in a game. He has, however, finally put together a string of positive outings and pushed Martin Jones into the background for now. Can he turn two to three solid starts into 10? Can he become the goalie he was for the Leafs last season?
One person, beyond Samsonov himself, who deserves some credit for the turnaround: Goalie coach Curtis Sanford, who spent hours and hours talking to and working with the goalie during his struggles.
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“Credit to him for putting in the work,” Keefe said of Samsonov. “I think virtually everyone, I’m sure, had counted him out and written him off.”
Even internally, Keefe added, the team had questions. They said as much in putting him on waivers, leaving him free for anyone in the league to grab. Those questions have cooled for now. Samsonov will undoubtedly draw another start in Winnipeg on Saturday. Play well there and he’ll keep rolling with the starting gig when the Leafs return from the All-Star break.
The opportunity is there for him, with Joseph Woll still inching his way back from a high-ankle sprain, to reclaim the No. 1 job that was meant for him at the outset of this season.
(Top photo: Michael Chisholm / NHLI via Getty Images)