Maple Leafs battle familiar face against Devils on TSN4
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It's not often the second game of the season is circled as an important one by an NHL team, but the Toronto Maple Leafs will have some added pressure to find a win when they battle the New Jersey Devils on Thursday.
Thursday's game marks the first time Sheldon Keefe will serve as head coach against the Maple Leafs in his career.
The 44-year-old got his first try as a head coach in the NHL for Toronto from midway through the 2019-20 season and served in that post until this past spring when the team suffered another early playoff exit.
Keefe has emerged from his five-year run with the Maple Leafs with a new outlook as he opens the next chapter of his career.
"I don't know if 'harden' is the right word, but it's an experience," Keefe said of leading the Maple Leafs to ESPN. "I started in what many would describe as the most difficult and challenging environment in the league - and many coaches in this league have reminded me of that.
"I leave there forever disappointed in myself that I wasn't able to help push that team over the line. But I know I'm a better coach, and a better person, having gone through it."
The head coach, though, wouldn't mind making a statement as his Devils look to make it three straight wins to open the season. New Jersey won their first two games against the Buffalo Sabres in Prague over the weekend, where Keefe's offence came up with a combined seven goals and held the Sabres to one goal in each game.
With a new-look tandem at goaltender in Jacob Markstrom and Jake Allen and Keefe behind the bench, the Devils are among the favourites to hoist the Stanley Cup this season.
"An expectation means that you've got great opportunity. It means you've got great players. And so I do like that," Keefe said. "We've talked about that the expectations should drive us every day and we should be excited coming here.
"What you can't let happen is that, because there's expectations, that you expect it just happens. It's incredibly difficult. This team didn't make the playoffs last year. There's a lot of other teams that didn't make the playoffs that think they're playoff teams this year, too. I look at the East this year and I don't know how you can pick 'em. We've got incredible opportunities, we've got good players, so now we've got to get to work here."
The Devils players, for their part, are also digging deeper to get their coach a win against his former team. "We know this is an emotional game for him, obviously, and we all want to help him to get that win," forward Jesper Bratt said.
"There’s definitely, in the room, some little extra motivation for sure," captain Nico Hischier added.
The Maple Leafs, meanwhile, were shutout in their season-opening loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday in Craig Berube's debut as bench boss.
The offence, which finished second in the NHL under Keefe last season with 3.63 goals per game, tallied 48 shots on net but could not figure out Montreal's Sam Montembault.
“You almost get 50 shots on net and you don’t get a goal - their goalie played well,” Berube after his first regular-season game behind Toronto’s bench.
“We did more than enough to score more than one goal tonight,” forward Auston Matthews, whose 69 goals last season led the NHL, said. “That didn’t happen.”
Anthony Stolarz started in net Wednesday after Joseph Woll was unexpectedly placed on injured reserve earlier in the day with a lower-body injury. Berube said after the loss he is considering starting Stolarz for both games of the doubleheader. The Maple Leafs started a goalie in both games of a doubleheader just once in the entirety of the 2023-24 season.
Keefe finished his stint with the Maple Leafs with a .665 winning percentage and a 212-97-40 record, but won only one playoff series in five tries and held a 16-21 record in the postseason.