Sheldon Keefe attempting an epic second line experiment on Tuesday night against the Blue Jackets
With Sheldon Keefe wanting to see more from two star players in John Tavares and William Nylander - especially at 5-on-5 - he has turned to the ace in the hole in Mitch Marner to get things back on track.
Before their game against the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday, Sheldon Keefe urged his captain to improve on his 5-on-5 play as he entered the game with 1 even strength goal in his last 14 games. He has already called out Nylander on previous occasions, but mentioned him by name once again, stating that if one struggles, the other will too, since both players go hand-in-hand.
Nylander has 2 goals and 3 points in his last 10 games, has seen his ice-time go up and down like a roller coaster, has played with different linemates at times to jumpstart his game, but it seems Keefe has gone to the one player who has the tendency to fix all problems. Mitch Marner.
Marner paces the club with a lofty 67 assists and 95 points through 75 games. If all goes according to plan, he should not only surpass his career-high of 97 points that he hit last season, but should reach the 100-point mark for the first time in his career. He was taken off his usual line with Auston Matthews and was seen practicing with both Tavares and Nylander as they welcome the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets at the Scotiabank Arena tonight.
Tavares ranks dead-last amongst forwards on the Leafs in Goals/60 since March 1st at 0.29, which is more than mildly alarming. Tavares has played over 209 minutes, Nylander close to 230 minutes, compared to some of other names on the list like Acciari's 136 minutes or Aston-Reese's 135 minutes. In that same time span, Marner has a ridiculous 3.34 total points per 60, while Tavares sits at 1.72 and Nylander at 1.31 - not the numbers you're expecting from two of your top players.
On the season as a whole, their numbers look pretty good. Nylander sits third with 1.15 goals per 60 and Tavares 5th at 0.96. These uncharacteristic struggles since the month of March will need a solution and fast, with the playoffs just 2 weeks away. It's no surprise that Marner paces the club in total points per 60 at 2.85 on the season. Getting that consistency back and returning to form is absolutely paramount for the Leafs right now as they enter a very important post-season push.
At some point in time, the dam is going to burst and the goals and points from Nylander and Tavares will flow, but it needs to happen sooner rather than later and with Marner being the team's best play-maker and play-driver, he is tasked to get his fellow superstars back on track. That hasn't been lost in the eyes of the head coach either as he said himself:
"Where we put Mitch, that line has done well."
By the sounds of things, Sheldon Keefe entrusts Marner with an awful lot of the burden of generating offense - though I'm sure Marner relishes in the additional workload and trust.
| POLL | ||
4 AVRIL | 12 ANSWERS Sheldon Keefe attempting an epic second line experiment on Tuesday night against the Blue Jackets Will the Nylander, Tavares, Marner trio be a combination that the Leafs will start the playoffs with? | ||
| Yes | 4 | 33.3 % |
| No | 4 | 33.3 % |
| We won't know until O'Reilly comes back | 4 | 33.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
