Keefe: Leafs' best players 'really careless' to start in loss to Blackhawks

Sheldon Keefe wasn't happy with his brightest stars' performance at the beginning of the Chicago Blackhawks' 4-1 win over his Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday night.

"The turnover stuff early on, just careless with the puck, and it's all our best players - really, really careless to start the game," the Maple Leafs head coach said postgame. "So that didn't give us a chance to take a hold of the game like you want to be able to do on home ice. So we weren't able to take charge of the game, and then (we) let (our) opponent hang around. We've seen this movie before."

Keefe did give credit to one of his best players when asked about whether his praise of William Nylander earlier Monday held up hours later. The Toronto bench boss also acknowledged the lackluster play of his most talented players improved as the game progressed.

"Willy was good with the puck," Keefe said. "(He) made a mistake on the transition on one goal against ... He's got to play (defense) and let our guys recover. But offensively ... our best guys got going in the second and third period. None of (them) were good in the first, but the second period was actually a fairly dominant period by us. When you're beat in transition, you give them free looks, and they score. So that's sort of the tale of the game."

The Blackhawks outshot the Maple Leafs 9-7 in the opening frame and controlled puck possession in the period. Chicago had 72.69% of the expected goals for at five-on-five in the first 20 minutes, according to Natural Stat Trick.

That script then flipped, as the Leafs posted an xGF% of 77.77 in the second period. But the Blackhawks outshot the Leafs 13-12 in the middle stanza and scored three goals to Toronto's one following a goalless first period for both clubs. An empty-netter with six seconds left in the third sealed Chicago's victory.

Leafs superstar Auston Matthews was held off the scoresheet entirely in his quest to become the first-ever player to produce three consecutive hat tricks. However, he did fire eight shots on goal and win 60.87% of his faceoffs.

Toronto captain John Tavares scored the team's lone goal to tie the game early in the second period - one of his six shots on goal in the game.

Mitch Marner led all Leafs and trailed only Blackhawks defenseman Seth Jones in average ice time on the night, logging 25:54 compared to Jones' 27:57. However, Marner was also held pointless and managed only three shots on goal.