Sheldon Keefe fires back at Brad Marchand, NHL officials

The Toronto Maple Leafs found themselves trailing early and often against the rival Boston Bruins, who defeated them by a 5-1 score in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarter Finals on Saturday night at TD Garden. 

And it was scrappy forward Max Domi who tried to set the tone early, delivering several jabs to Bruins captain and professional pest Brad Marchand before the opening puck drop. While Domi escaped penalty before the game began, that wasn't the case later in the second period.

Domi was whistled for a slash against Marchand, which his Bruins teammates quickly made count on the scoreboard with a goal to make it 4-0 and put the contest well out of reach.

"I mean, hey, we sent a message for sure and obviously came up a little bit short," Domi said. "But we did a lot of good things last game so just got to keep doing the good stuff."

While Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe would say that DOmi's actions were inappropriate, in no way does he want him to turn down the intensity.

"I don't need Max to change anything about who he is and how he plays. He's an important guy for us, and I love the intensity he brought the other night. He got caught on the penalty," Keefe said.

Additionally, Keefe dropped what many are interpreting as a jab at the officials for not calling the pesky Bruins captain for doing the same thing. 

"I know their guy's probably going to get the same slash probably ten times in the rest of this series, and we'll see if he gets called on it," Keefe said. "But I love Max's intensity."

Can the Bruins take a commanding 2-0 series lead tonight, or will the Leafs be heading back home to Toronto having knotted things up at 1-1? 

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