Leafs Key Man Announced A Departure” That He Is Having A Serious Crisis With….

Right-shot rearguard Timothy Liljegren will miss Tuesday’s game with an undisclosed injury, which means the Leafs will be forced to dress an all-lefty defence.

“I don’t like it,” said head coach Sheldon Keefe of his previous experience with the alignment. “We do have a number of guys that are at least comfortable on the right side, and certainly if not comfortable at least have experience with it, and can manage that and just press on.”

Jake McCabe switched to the right side earlier this season and has been playing in that spot consistently. T.J. Brodie has played his off side for most of his career before moving to the left after the suspension to Morgan Rielly. At Monday’s practice, Simon Benoit got reps on the right. William Lagesson has also filled in on that side.

“McCabe’s getting to a point that he’s got enough reps there and he’s had some success with it, so he’s feeling good with it,” Keefe said. “Morgan, over my time here, has been very willing to play the right side. Obviously, he hasn’t done very much of it, but any time that we have asked him to or needed somebody to, he’s kind of the first one with his hand up and wants to go over there.”

When Liljegren got hurt on Saturday, Rielly offered to switch sides so Brodie could remain on the left.

“He just said, ‘I’ll go play the right side,’ and he’s good with that,” Keefe noted.

Benoit indicated that the plan is for him to remain with McCabe to start Tuesday’s game.

“I suspect we’ll be moving things around a fair bit,” Keefe cautioned.

The Golden Knights believe they can take advantage of Toronto’s all-southpaw defence.

“On D to D [passes] in the neutral zone, sometimes if you take a good angle you can limit where they can go with the puck or force a quicker play,” coach Bruce Cassidy said. “Pucks coming around the boards in the offensive zone, you recognize you can get on top of them a little quicker, because they have to take it backhand to forehand. In general, those are probably the areas. I don’t know how well they pivot on their off side. Stuff like that you wouldn’t know until you play against them a few times. But, in general, there are a few opportunities.”

Cassidy did note that his team will have to be on the lookout for quicker one timers when the Leafs have the puck in the offensive zone.

“There’s some positives of playing on your off side too,” Keefe noted. “If you’re playing a better team game, you can enhance those positives. If you are not playing as good of a team game, you can enhance the negatives and the difficulties that come with it.”

The Leafs are thin on the right side after key off-season acquisition John Klingberg underwent season-ending hip surgery. He hasn’t played since November.

Conor Timmins, another righty, is also unavailable right now as he recovers from mononucleosis.

Toronto’s team game is in the best shape it’s been all season. The Leafs just swept a four-game road trip, including a win in Vegas last Thursday. Toronto has won seven straight games overall.

“You don’t want to have any let up,” said Keefe. “The fact we’re playing the same opponent, an opponent we have a tremendous amount of respect for, that in itself should be enough for us to not take a step backwards.”

The first game back from a Western Conference road trip can be tricky. And Tuesday will be the fifth straight time the Leafs change time zones between games.

“Any sort of fatigue or anything that we might be facing coming back from the road trip, to me, is probably nothing in comparison to playing on a back to back like we did when we went into Vegas and probably had our best effort of the season when it comes to our actual work rate and our enthusiasm,” Keefe said. “That’s a back-to-back situation in the middle of a long road trip and all of that, so that level of effort and enthusiasm is going to be certainly required tonight.”

After weathering an early storm, the Leafs built a 4-0 lead and cruised to a 7-3 victory in Vegas.

“I would fully expect the game to be entirely different than it was when we were out there,” Keefe warned. “I expect it to be hard and tight and a grind all the way through … You’ll have a better group on the Vegas side.”

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The Knights have dropped four of five games and followed up the defeat to Toronto with a shootout loss in Ottawa on Saturday. Vegas is currently playing without top-line centre Jack Eichel and captain Mark Stone among others.

But with Shea Theodore returning last week, the Knights now have a healthy defence.

“No matchup issues for us when they’re going well,” said Cassidy. “So, on the road, no concerns about, ‘Hey, you got this matchup, you got that matchup.’ Last year in the playoffs, I’d use [Nicolas] Hague and [Zach] Whitecloud, because they were considered the bottom pair, the other two were probably interchangeable, we used them against [Matthew] Tkachuk and [Aleksander] Barkov a lot, and they were up to the task. So, tonight if [Auston] Matthews jumps on for a shift we haven’t mapped out, we won’t be hauling them off the ice. We trust them in every situation and that’s what I like best about them is they all can play against anybody.”

The Vegas blueline features two right shots in Alex Pietrangelo and Whitecloud.

“We can pretty much roll six guys, which is a luxury that not many teams have,” said Pietrangelo. “I trust any guy on that back end to play against anybody. I think that alleviates a lot of the pressure on some of us who play against the top lines consistently. It’s good to have the gang back together.”