Keefe singles out Leafs' blue line in Sharks loss: 'It starts with the D'

Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe pinned most of the blame for Thursday's 4-3 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks on his blue line.

"Moving the puck from our defense up to our forwards and getting on the attack, I thought we had a real hard time with that," he told reporters postgame. "Vegas (game) was similar. So I think our inability to move the puck right now is really slowing us down."

The Leafs have historically been one of the league's better possession teams under Keefe, but the Sharks simply outplayed them in this outing. San Jose controlled 52.7% of the expected goals and outshot Toronto 26-21 at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick.

On the season, the Leafs rank a pedestrian 15th in five-on-five expected goals percentage after ranking third last season and second in 2020-21. They've also only scored 12 five-on-five goals in eight games.

"Our inability to move the puck up the ice efficiently is slowing down all of our game on offense, and it's really hurting our game defensively as well because we're just getting stressed," Keefe said. "Second period, we couldn't get our defense off the ice because we couldn't move the puck up."

When given chance to bail out his defenders and spread some of the responsibility on the forwards, Keefe didn't take it.

"It starts with the D," he said. "Their touches. Their first touch has to be better."

Keefe added that changing the pairs wouldn't make a difference.

The Leafs have been rolling with the following defense pairs for the last four games:

Veteran Jake Muzzin has missed the last four contests with a neck injury, and he won't return anytime soon, either, with the team placing him on long-term injured reserve Tuesday, according to CapFriendly.

However, Toronto's on the verge of getting youngster Timothy Liljegren back from a hernia injury suffered in September. The 23-year-old took part in his first rehab game with the AHL's Toronto Marlies on Wednesday.