"I don't think for a second that it's [Sheldon Keefe's] responsibility or it's his fault or that he's the one to blame for a defensive team that's not quite as good. I think the biggest problem for Toronto is that they don't have the puck on their stick as much. Like, we know they're a good offensive team. You look at all of the metrics, they're one of the best offensive teams in the league, except for time of possession in the offensive zone.
In the previous 3 years, they were a top 10 time in time of possession. They're like 25th this year, so that tells you they make good plays, they make high-risk plays, but they don't play in the offensive zone enough, which makes them defend longer.
No team is going to be perfect. The more times you ask a team to defend, eventually somebody will make a mistake or whatever team will make a good play. Where the Leafs are getting themselves into a lot of trouble is that they're asking their team, which is not that great defensively to begin with, to [defend] more than they ever have. That, to me, I think is one of the root causes of what is going [wrong] all year long. The Leafs just don't have the puck in the offensive zone often enough, like they have in previous years, so now they have to defend more often and they're not as good at it. That's where you see the results sort of being middling through the course of the year as opposed to exceptional, like they have been the previous 3 years." - Mike Johnson on the Leafs' #1 problem right now
