Sheldon Keefe rips into his star players after an abysmal showing against the Oilers

The Toronto Maple Leafs turned in a very disappointing showing against the Edmonton Oilers tonight as they took the loss, 5-2. Connor McDavid scored 2 goals and recorded an assist in the first 20 minutes, a former Maple Leaf, Zach Hyman, scored the eventual game-winning goal in the first period, and Stuart Skinner outplayed Ilya Samsonov in goal, without question.

The abysmal performance didn't go unnoticed by head coach, Sheldon Keefe, and he was rather straight forward at the end of the game, explaining where he thought they went wrong tonight.




Straight, simple, and to the point as he called out his big-4 in Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander. Nylander was a -3 in 16:47 TOI, Tavares was a -2 in only 15:33 TOI, and while Marner scored a power play goal in the third period, the game was pretty much put away by that point. Even in 20 minutes of ice-time, the performance from Marner and Matthews was dormant.

The Maple Leafs made several acquisitions over the past few weeks as they try to get their lineup acclimated with one another. Ryan O'Reilly, Noel Acciari, Sam Lafferty, and Jake McCabe still have time to get their feet wet and it helps when your head coach gives you a thumbs up after a tough loss.

The Maple Leafs are still sitting pretty near the top of the NHL standings and losses come and go in the ebbs and flows of an 82-game season. However, the compete level, the drive, the motivation, and the eye-test has to be consistent even during a loss and Keefe wasn't having any of it after tonight's game.