Hours before he ended David Kämpf’s consecutive games-played streak at 323 games in late December, Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe explained that things were about to change for his team.
“The tolerance for the same types of mistakes that are happening,” Keefe said, “is going to be a lot less, and needs to be a lot less if we don’t see improvement.”
About two weeks later, Keefe became maybe the first coach ever to bench John Tavares, sitting the captain and Tyler Bertuzzi for most of the third period in a game against Colorado. Keefe went further still on Wednesday night, sitting Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander for an entire second-period power play.
The rationale for the move was obvious: The Leafs’ No. 1 power-play unit, scuffling of late, had permitted a two-on-nothing rush to come Ilya Samsonov’s way.
Samsonov made both stops in his best performance of the season. But that wasn’t the point.