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With Thornton and Matthews out, forwards Pierre Engvall, Alex Barabanov and Adam Brooks will be inserted into the lineup. Keefe had gone with 11 forwards and seven defencemen in the past two games, but said regardless of the injuries, had made the decision to revert to the more common lineup of 12 forwards and six defencemen.
It was not clear which defenceman will be sitting. Mikko Lehtonen started each of the past two games as the seventh D-man.
Keefe wouldn’t give any hints as to how his lines will be set, but did say William Nylander will not be playing centre.
The greater issue for Keefe is his team’s lack of goals at five-on-five. The Leafs (3-2-0) were structured well defensively in a 3-1 loss to the Oilers (2-3-0) on Wednesday, limiting Connor McDavid to an assist, but had little in the way of pressure on Edmonton goalie Mikko Koskinen while the teams were playing even. And that won’t get much easier with Matthews and Thornton, two-thirds of the top line with Mitch Marner, in spectator roles.
“No matter who is in the lineup, what the lines are, we have to find a way to get to the net a lot more,” Keefe said. “It has been an issue for us, not just in the last game — certainly the last game highlighted it a lot because we did not get the power-play goal to supplement our offence.
“We have to find ways to get to the net more consistently. JT (John Tavares), Will (Nylander), Mitch, Hymes (Zach Hyman), all these guys, but all the way through the lineup — (Jimmy) Vesey, (Ilya) Mikheyev, all these guys have to do a better job of helping us get there, (Alex) Kerfoot.”
