Keefe undecided on whether Bunting will return to Leafs lineup

TSN SportsCentre Reporter Mark Masters reports on the Maple Leafs. Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe held a Zoom call with the media before the team flew home from Tampa on Tuesday. Lightning coach Jon Cooper held a Zoom call with the media. Game 5 of the best-of-seven first-round series goes Thursday night in Toronto.

Michael Bunting is eligible to return after serving a three-game suspension, but coach Sheldon Keefe isn't sure if the gritty left winger will play on Thursday. 

"It is a very good option for us," Keefe said. "He is a good player for us. It is not as easy or as simple of a decision as it may have been earlier in the series or at a different time."

Bunting played all 82 games for the Leafs during the regular season and finished with 23 goals, which was fifth-most on the team. But the Leafs have won three straight and coaches are often wary of changing a winning lineup. 

"We have a group of guys here who have played really hard," said Keefe. "We have some time now today and tomorrow to sort through it and make the decision."

Matthew Knies, who entered the lineup because of the suspension, has performed well. The Leafs have now won all six games that Knies has played in his National Hockey League career, including four against the Lightning. 

"Knies is certainly not coming out of the lineup," Keefe said. "He has done a terrific job for us. He is a guy who definitely earned his spot and the opportunity to continue to play for us there."

Knies was on the ice with the second power-play unit when the overtime winner went in on Monday night. The 20-year-old product of the University of Minnesota also saved a goal by clearing a puck off the goal line earlier in the game. 

"There's a lot of nerves going on in the game especially in overtime," he said following Game 3, "but I just got to stay composed, not grip my stick a little bit too tight and be confident in myself. I think I learned a lot in pressure situations in Minnesota."

Bunting had been playing on the top line with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner in Game 1, but Calle Jarnkrok has moved up and fit in well.

Fourth-line wingers Sam Lafferty and Zach Aston-Reese played the fewest minutes on Monday, but taking one of those players out would likely lead to a bigger lineup shake up. Keefe entrusts the fourth line to handle a lot of defensive-zone starts and Bunting isn't known for his defensive play. He didn't even take reps during 5-on-6 work during a pre-series practice. 

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Bunting put himself in this position by hitting Lightning defenceman Erik Cernak in the head when he didn't have the puck in Game 1. Cernak has not played since and coach Jon Cooper confirmed he will remain sidelined for Game 5. 

"He is a big part of our penalty kill," Cooper told reporters. "He is a big part of defending. He is an instrumental part of our D core that plays big minutes and plays those shutdown minutes. Not having him has hurt."

Toronto scored two power-play goals in Game 4. 

"If you go to any team and pluck — as a defender — their top-two defender for a series, I don't think the team would be too happy about it," Cooper said. 

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Cooper offered a spirited defence of Andrei Vasilevskiy.

"I don't know what has been wrong with Vasilevskiy's performance," the coach said. "If I look through this series, the Marner goal in Game 2 is one he for sure wants to have back. After that, realistically, what are we saying he has done wrong besides making all the saves he is supposed to? If you look at last night, who is stopping the [Noel] Acciari tip? Nobody is stopping that. Who is stopping the Matthews' tip? Nobody is stopping that. The [Morgan] Rielly goal — the third one — we came off of our check and completely screened our goalie. The winning goal — Alex Kerfoot's — who is stopping that? Take any goalie — the best ones in the history of the game — they are not stopping those. Those are unbelievable, 100 per cent chance of going in kind of goals. It is just tough that they are all happening in one game. Those great tips don't always happen at the same time."

Seven of Toronto's nine goals in Tampa came from either a tip, a rebound or a point shot with a screen. 

"The onus is on the guys in front of him to try to do a little better and, in the end, give Toronto some of the credit for some of the plays they are making," said Cooper. "But if you took all of Toronto's games — their last 10 games — I bet they don't have all of those types of goals. It is something we have to be better at and hopefully Toronto [declines] a little bit in that department."

Vasilevskiy has allowed 19 goals through four games, which is the most in the playoffs. 

"It is a world-class goalie," Keefe stressed. "That is the reality of it but, certainly for us, the more we can get to the net, it makes it hard on anybody. There are not many goalies in the league that really excel with traffic, pucks coming through bodies and deflections. It is a really difficult thing."

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For the first and only time in the series, there will be a two-day break between games. 

"Personally, I like it," Cooper said. "Everybody gets to take a breath. We gave the guys a day off today. We have played a ton of hockey. It is good for them to be back with their family. I am glad we are not traveling today. We get to travel tomorrow. Give the players a day off and they will be in a different mindset — a more positive mindset, in my opinion — when we get back at it tomorrow."

It's also another day for stars like Victor Hedman, who missed Game 2 with an undisclosed injury, and Brayden Point, who crashed hard into the boards in Game 3, to rest and recover. 

"We have had kind of a tough little string here physically for whatever reason," Coopers said. "Another extra day is definitely going to help our guys."

It will also give the Leafs a chance to reset mentally after two emotional comeback wins in Tampa. 

"It is nice that we have a couple of days here," Keefe said. "It was pretty calm and quiet at breakfast. You travel home today. We will get a practice day tomorrow. Really, for me, it will be about the focus. We have to prepare to win one hockey game — one very challenging hockey game. That is really it. Anything else outside of our preparation and then our execution when game time comes is a distraction. It is on me as a coach and our players individually to eliminate as many distractions as possible and keep the focus where it needs to be."

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Matthews led the comeback effort on Monday with a pair of goals in the third period. 

"He took control," said centre Ryan O'Reilly. "He stepped up in a major way for us and gave us that spark and some unbelievable plays there to get us back in the game. It's huge."

Marner set up the first Matthews tally on Monday, which was a signature snipe. 

"When you see 34 coming down the wing any time with space around him you want to get that puck to him as quick as you can," Marner said. "It's on and off that stick in a serious hurry."

The reigning Hart Trophy winner added a nice deflection goal a couple minutes later. 

"He steps up at a time when the game is clearly in the balance," said Keefe. "There was the finish on a great passing play with [William] Nylander and Marner there to get us started and then an unbelievable tip out of the air to close out our power play and bring us within one. That obviously gave a shock to the system a little bit for our group to say there is lots of reason to continue to work and go here. That is the type of game-breaking and game-changing ability that he has."

There was a calm determination evident from Matthews, who finished with seven shots on net. 

"We started to get our game going through the second period," the star centre said. "We get one and they get one back but I thought in the locker room and everything we stayed focused. Just chip away, chip away every shift. Just try and go out there and win your shift and just battle back and found a way to get it done."

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After scoring the overtime winner on Saturday, Rielly proceeded to pot the game-tying goal on Monday. 

"He's always been such an elite player but just, you know, stepping up in these huge times for us," said O'Reilly. "Stepping up when we need him most."

Rielly is sporting a black eye courtesy of all the rough stuff in Game 3. 

"He's just a competitor," said Matthews. "It doesn't matter what the situation is, what gets thrown at him, he's there and he's in the fight and in the battle every single night. It's a guy that you love to go to battle with ... He's the backbone of our defensive end and a guy that obviously all of us look up to because he's been here the longest. He's been through a lot and we have the ultimate level of respect for him."

Rielly is now up to six points in this year's series, which matches his career high in the playoffs. 

"It's just fun," the 29-year-old said. "We're all having fun. It's good to be together. This is why you play so we're just trying to make the most of it."

Rielly has scored in six of the seven playoff series he's played in. 

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Kerfoot emerged as the unlikely overtime hero on Monday. 

"It's what you dream about: scoring goals in overtime in the playoffs," he said. 

Kerfoot's point total cratered from 51 last season to just 32 this year. 

"His production was below the standard we would like it to be at and what we think he is capable of," said Keefe. "There was a period of time, though — it might have been late February or through March — when I thought he was playing quite well. We started to move him up the lineup, and he was playing really well. The production was still not really there, but he was playing really well. The message was just to encourage him to stay positive, stay with it, keep doing good things, and keep helping the team. I told him at that time that I felt pretty strongly he was going to score a massive goal for us this season. I didn't know when it was going to come, but I just felt that a guy who works as hard as he does and as good as he is for the leadership and spirit of our team is the guy who usually gets rewarded and should get rewarded."

It was a far different story in Game 6 of last year's series when Kerfoot committed a bad turnover and took a costly penalty, which led to a pair of Tampa Bay goals in what was ultimately an overtime loss. 

"I mean, like, I don't want to make it any bigger than it is," Kerfoot said. "It's an overtime goal in the playoffs which is big. It doesn't make up for anything else that I've done, but my mindset is the next day and moving forward and wanting to help the team in any way I can. There's days when you'll be playing more, when you'll be playing less, and all I can control is my attitude and my mindset and what I bring on a day-to-day basis."

Kerfoot is a popular teammate. He was invited to join the team's extended leadership group last year and wore an 'A' late in the regular season when Matthews and Marner were rested in a game. The Harvard product also serves as the team's NHLPA rep. 

"Kerfoot's loved in this room more than I think anyone, to be honest," said Marner. "He gets the most chirps and love that anyone gets."

"He's an unbelievable teammate," said Rielly, who is a fellow Vancouver native. "I've known him for a long time so thinking about how hard he works and everything he brings and then he buries that, you just want to grab him, like, you're just so happy. For him to contribute in that way is crazy and I could not be happier for anybody."