Sheldon Keefe

SHELDON KEEFE Q. Lance Hornby, Toronto Sun: Travis Boyd said the other day that you guys had a phone conversation in the summer about him coming here and part of the reason he did was a good familiarity through the years in the AHL. Just wondered what you liked about him in those days, I guess he was with Hershey, what did you like about him? Sheldon Keefe: Well, first of all, what I liked about him is being able to watch him play in the NHL and watch him play in the playoffs last season for Washington, in particular. Little known thing, but he played a playoff game in the season when Washington won the Stanley Cup as well. He's had some experience, not just playing the NHL, but playing when it when it matters most. The background, of course, is my time gets coaching against him in Hershey in the American League. Just a very dangerous player, lots of skill, you make a mistake, he can score. You saw that ability, which spoke to the potential of him being able to play up and down the lineup if required, and he has, through his limited time in the NHL, has produced a pretty good rate. All those kind of things just made it pretty obvious that he's a guy that if we had the opportunity we'd like to bring into our mix. Q. Lance Hornby, Toronto Sun: Do you feel good for a guy like Travis Green, a fellow AHL coaching grad, and someone who's also made the big time now? Sheldon Keefe: Yeah, for sure. Greener is a great coach. In fact, when I had just got hired by the Marlies the very first American League game I had went to go watch was in Utica, with the Comets in the Calder Cup Finals against Ontario. That was kind of my introduction to seeing the AHL at its highest level, at its highest point. Greener has been great to talk to all through my time in the American League and even when even on to the NHL he was great to chat with and all those kinds of things. You see a guy like that that's worked his way up and found success, it was great watching his team have success in the playoffs this past season. That was fun to watch, but competing against them now, here in the Canadian Division, it's got a little different feeling towards the whole thing, but having a chance to compete against them is great. Q. Kevin McGran, Toronto Star: Any lineup changes tonight? Sheldon Keefe: Lehtonen will be in for Dermott. That's it. Q. Kevin McGran, Toronto Star: I know that prior to the season both you and Kyle had really preached that you don't want to see lulls this season in your team for extended periods. I know it's only 11 games, but it's still 20 percent of the season. What have you thought of the progress you might have made on that front? Sheldon Keefe: Yeah, I think you made the point there with extended periods. That's what we definitely don't want to see, I think to expect that there's not going to be lulls throughout games or throughout the season is probably unrealistic, in particular with this season, the way the schedule is, and the travel and whatnot. Through the 11 games, I think that's an area we've been real good at. Obviously, we've had good results and when we've had a bad period or a bad sequence in the game, we've responded and gotten it back on track. I think that's how we found our way to win so many of these one goal games. I would say that we've shown great progress in that area and I think the players feel it too. I think they've found themselves in some situations where they've looked at it and, in my talks with them, they feel like those are the kind of games we would have lost last season. In the early going here we've found our way on the right side of it, but each day is a new challenge, a new opportunity, and you've got to stay with it. Q. Josh Clipperton, The Canadian Press: I'm just wondering if you've seen a common thread or a common theme in the second of these games. You've played a few of them now if it's the intensity of the adjustments on the other side, win or lose. Sheldon Keefe: I don't think there's been any real common themes necessarily. You certainly do see some adjustments. I think that's the biggest one. It's not a big surprise to me, but it is difficult to beat a team twice in a row in the NHL. I don't know what the stats are showing on it in terms of the frequency of it, not just within our division, but across the League, but it is a difficult thing. It's a difficult thing in the regular season, it's a difficult thing in the playoffs to win that second game and that's the challenge. We've been on both sides of that. We've won the first game and lost the second. We've lost the first, won the second. I think that's something we were prepared for going in and I think that's just such an important thing. If you're looking to create separation in the standings, you've got to be able to do that, to win the second game. We talked about that this morning. The other team, in this case Vancouver, is going to push back. They're going to be a lot more focused and they had another day off yesterday. That's two out of the last three days off. They'll have a lot more energy and legs here today. It's going to be a much different game, and we've got to be prepared for that. Q. Mark Masters, TSN: How did you feel Wayne fit in with John and William on Thursday? How did you assess how that that line came together? Sheldon Keefe: Yeah, I thought he did a good job. I think he's showing lots of jump, he's skating really well and being able to sustain it consistently throughout games. With his speed, he does a great job of keeping the shift short. He gets off the ice before things get real difficult on his shift and trusts his teammates to go out and do the job and he rests and prepares to go out for his next one. Obviously, his minutes have increased greatly as the season has gone on here, and we've seen real benefits to that in terms of his confidence and his puck play. Because of how he works and goes to the net and disrupts things on the forecheck, he creates a lot more loose pucks and zone time for John and Will, so that was that was good to see. Q. Mark Masters, TSN: What do you like about how the two power play units have been coexisting this year? Do you get the sense they feed off each other? Maybe there's a friendly competition? What's your sense of that? Sheldon Keefe: Yeah, I think there is some competition there. That's how we had designed it and what we hoped would materialize. Both units have found success and that helps, of course. If you've got one that's really stalled, or both, of course, that are really stalled, then it's probably one we wouldn't say with very long, but it's caught on and the nice thing about it is even when we've made adjustments throughout, we've got Kerfoot playing in the spot that Thornton was in and that unit hasn't missed a beat there. Then the Tavares, Nylander, Hyman, Spezza unit has been great, really from the start of the season. We've got some real good competition happening there. We've been able to spread it out well. I think, as you've seen at different times, we do blend the two units together at different times, whether the game we feel has called for it or within line changes and things like that, but we like the balance that we've had with it and the players have responded very well, most importantly. .

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