TORONTO — Offense is not going to be a problem for the Toronto Maple Leafs moving forward. Even if the goals dry up for three or four games — as they are bound to do at some point — they’ll come back. What will tell the tale of their season, though, will be how consistently they can keep the puck out of their own net.

Just once in the last 10 games, a stretch in which they went 8-1-1, have the Maple Leafs failed to score at least four goals in a game. Six times, however, they have allowed at least three goals and over their past three games, they have surrendered 15 goals against in total.

No matter how powerful a team’s offense is, they will not outscore their flaws on defense come April and May. All things considered though, this is a good problem for head coach Sheldon Keefe to have.

“I’m much happier to be in that position of just having to fix that than sitting here every day trying to figure out how the heck are we going to score a goal,” Keefe said on Monday.

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Keefe suggested Toronto’s alarming number of goals against lately have more to do altering its mindset than structural deficiencies in its own zone.

“We think we’re close [to getting it sorted out], we think they’re easy adjustments in terms of just being more conscious and more aware,” Keefe said. “The difficult part is when you’ve got such offensive players who are really feeling it and feel like they can score at any time that they push a little extra. In terms of adjustments we need to make, we think it’s pretty simple, it’s just the mindset and mentality but actually going out and making it happen is different.”

When looking at how the Leafs has allowed goals over the past three games, only three of the 15 — Carolina Hurricanes' Martin Necas and Erik Haula’s goals on Dec. 23 and New Jersey Devils' Nico Hischier’s goal on Dec. 27 — can be attributed to full-on defensive zone breakdowns.

The rest are largely the result of turnovers in inopportune situations when otherwise in control of the puck that have led to goals off the rush.

“A lot of our issues that have come up and cost us goals against, we think they’re offensive issues, turning the puck over in a bad spot which means you can’t have any structure defensively,” Keefe said. “We think it’s overdoing it a bit on offense and then you leave yourself exposed. Any time we’ve been in our structure defensively, we think we’ve done a good job. When we’re on offense, it’s the few seconds after that before we can get into our defensive structure that’s been our problem.”

Moving forward for Toronto, now it is about learning to manage the puck more effectively and realizing when is the time to push to make a play and when the time is to get it in deep and live to fight another day when a play is not there to be made.

“I don’t think we’re giving up a whole lot in our defensive zone off the cycle. Off the rush, those are the chances we’re kind of giving up with how active we’re being in the offensive zone,” Mitch Marner said. “As forwards we have to realize we have to get back and play that defensive position sometimes but it’s not always going to be perfect with our guys back. We’re playing with the puck a lot and that’s annoying teams and makes us feel better. Off the rush is our only problem really right now.”

At this point though, do not expect the Maple Leafs to ever become a defensively stingy team capable of locking down games and winning 2-1 on a regulation basis. Ideally, Keefe said he would like Toronto to play as high event as possible when it comes to generating chances and as low event as possible when it comes to their opponent’s generating chances. He said that really is no different than most any other team.

The difference with the Leafs is that, while conventional wisdom suggests to always lean toward keeping the puck out of your net, they will lean towards scoring an extra goal.

“Where we are perhaps a little different is we’d be accepting of the fact that how we are going to play is going to give up some things and at times when you create a great offensive chance, it can leave you exposed the other way and that’s where we have to plug that hole,” Keefe said.

In other words, the players have been given the green light to take a chance to make a play more often than not. Few teams operate like that. Will it work? Only time will tell.