Breaking down Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe’s strategy in win over Ducks

Just what was Sheldon Keefe thinking? Mixing up the lines. Using Jason Spezza first in a the shootout. Calling a timeout during a power play. If one thing is for certain, the Maple Leafs coach does not do anything without thinking it through first.

And Wednesday night’s 4-3 shootout win over the Anaheim Ducks was a window into his mind and how he thinks — and perhaps even overthinks — the game.

Let’s start with the end.

Keefe elected to have Spezza shoot first. Keefe has a lot of firepower on the bench, six players with more goals than Spezza’s seven. Keefe knew Spezza has a 37.2 per cent success rate all time with 29 goals on 78 shots. That’s 33rd all time among players who have taken at least 50 shots in the shootout.

But there was another reason to with Spezza first. He didn’t play at all in the 3-on-3 overtime.

“Auston Matthews and William Nylander are second and third shooters,” Keefe said. “Those guys can use a little extra breather coming out of the out of (the overtime). So Spezza going first, I like that. He’s setting the table for us. He did a tremendous job.”

Spezza scored, as did Matthews, and the Leafs won. The plan worked.

Now let’s talk about the lines. Keefe changed them all up this week, spreading Matthews, Nylander, Mitch Marner and John Tavares — the famed Core Four — over three lines, instead of two.

At 5-on-5, the Leafs were outscored 3-0. Marner, Nylander and Tavares were each minus-2. Morgan Rielly was minus-3.

So, on the surface, it appears that plan didn’t work. But one of those minuses — Rielly’s extra one — was an own-goal. Another came at the end of the power play when the group was gassed, and caught flatfooted. Both were more about puck luck. Only Vinni Lettieri’s tying goal was the result of Anaheim actually outworking the Maple Leafs, a rarity on Wednesday.

At 5-on-5, the Leafs possessed the puck 60 per cent of the time, according to naturalstattrick.com. Never mind the shot clock (44-20 in the Leafs favour), the Leafs had 13 high-danger chances to six by the Ducks.

And that worry about Nylander’s ice time dropping? Well, no doubt aided by power play time and overtime, but Nylander played 20:54, third to Matthews (23:02) and Marner (22:48) with Tavares coming in right behind at 20:38.

Keefe largely kept the lines together, but double-shifted Matthews on occasion with Nylander and Alex Kerfoot, and double-shifted Nylander with Tavares and Marner. And, of course, after the Maple Leafs kill a penalty, Tavares and Matthews typically played the next shift together.

“That worked out the way I thought it would, and I liked it,” said Keefe. “In terms of the chemistry of the group and the flow, it’s going to take some time. We can’t assess that off one game.”

So that means more games with this alignment are coming. And with the Leafs sitting securely in a playoff spot halfway through the season, who’s to argue.

As for that timeout he called, during a power play, well, maybe this where thinking became overthinking. No doubt, the top power-play unit had been hot. It scored twice in the first period, and had just scored again on a 5-on-3, with about a minute remaining in the 5-on-4 late in the second period. The Leafs were up 3-1, and a fourth goal would be the dagger.

Instead of putting out the second power-play unit, Keefe called a timeout to give the top group some rest. It looked like it might work, they generated some chances. But they overplayed it. With 10 seconds to go in the penalty, Jack Campbell was banging his stick on the ice — a warning that the penalty was nearly over.

The five players on the top unit continued their attack. All four forwards were around the Anaheim crease when the puck popped loose to Sam Carrick just as Jakob Silfverberg was coming out of the box. The Ducks had a 3-on-1, Silfverberg connected. Now the Ducks had life heading into the third.

Keefe owned the mistake. That first power-play unit is not usually out at the expiration of a penalty, and is not used to retreating at the sound of a goalie’s tapping stick. Keefe said he forgot to remind them.

“You need to get a line change towards the end there, but that’s something that the second unit is accustomed to doing and they get off the ice before something like that happens,” said Keefe. “And I failed to point that out to our guys to be mindful of that. So that’s on me.”

As players like to say, it’s the “little things” that make a difference in the game. Keefe thought them through, and overall, it worked out.