Sheldon Keefe reveals his reason for shifting Nylander down to line 3
Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe has been constantly shuffling his lineup since the start of the playoffs and it has led to mixed results, going 2-2 against the defending Stanley Cup Champions. It's worth noting that while the Leafs control the matchups at home, they had less control on the road in Tampa, with the Bolts having the last line change.
On Tuesday at the Leafs' morning skate ahead of Game 5, Keefe had Michael Bunting back up with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, in hopes that the trio could re-discover some of that regular season magic. Meanwhile, on the second line, William Nylander was nowhere to be found. He instead skated on the third line with David Kampf and Pierre Engvall, while John Tavares skated with Ilya Mikheyev and Alexander Kerfoot. The forward group was rounded out with a fourth line featuring Jason Spezza, Colin Blackwell and Ondrej Kase.
Many were of the mindset that Nylander pulling up to avoid a hit from Bolts defenseman Erik Cernak in Game 4 was the reason for his demotion to the third line, but following the morning skate, Keefe revealed that the move was more focused on spreading out his defensively responsible forwards.
With Mikheyev moving up to play with Tavares and Kerfoot, the Leafs are a more well-balanced team. Matthews and Marner's two-way play speaks for itself. Mikheyev and Kerfoot are not afraid to get into the dirty areas, freeing up Tavares to post up in front, looking for tips and playing in tight, where he is most effective. Nylander provides a legit scoring threat on the third line, and we all know how solid Kampf and Engvall are defensively.
The puck is expected to drop for Game 5 shortly after 7:30pm ET. We'll see if these new-look lines can get the job done at home. If not, I'm sure we'll see Keefe make some changes on the fly to try to capitalize on matchups.
| POLL | ||
MAI 10 | 270 ANSWERS Sheldon Keefe reveals his reason for shifting Nylander down to line 3 Will Nylander finish Game 5 on line 3, or will he move back up to line 2 with Tavares? | ||
| He'll play on line 3 all night | 113 | 41.9 % |
| He'll move back up to line 2 | 59 | 21.9 % |
| He'll take shifts with mulitple lines as needed | 98 | 36.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
