High Profile Change to Maple Leafs' Top Line Has Some Hoping it's Permanent
During Sunday's 5-3 win by the Maple Leafs, the team rolled out a change to the Auston Matthews line that some are hoping is permanent.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have attempted a number of different line combinations, but one they hadn't really tried until last night's win against the Sabres was a line featuring the team's 3 best players.
With the Leafs down early to Buffalo last night on the 2nd half of a back-to-back, I don't know that anyone's confidence was particularly high about a potential comeback. However, some changes to the lineup on the fly by head coach Craig Berube really seemed to spark his team.
John Tavares was the star of the night for the Maple Leafs, with the former captain finding the back of the net 3 times on the evening. His line was one of the ones impacted by the changes from Berube, who had shifted William Nylander up to play with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner on the top line, forcing Matthew Knies down to Tavares' wing on the 2nd line.
Teams generally don't like to load up one line, as it becomes easier for the opposition to game plan for that and match their top shutdown players against what would be considered the most dangerous offensive group at the other end of the ice. If the best players are neutralized by the opposing team's shutdown line, it can make it very hard to score -- hence why so many teams spread out the talent across 2 or 3 lines.
Last night, the trio of Nylander, Matthews and Marner didn't get on the board together, but they did soak up enough of the attention from the Sabres to allow Tavares and his group to go to work. It also allowed the McMann-Domi-Robertson line to flourish with all 3 players putting up multi-point performances in the 5-3 win.
I'm not typically in favour of loading up the way the Leafs did last night, but with Nylander, Matthews and Marner already having so much familiarity with one another from their time together on the power play, perhaps it would be a worthwhile decision to allow these players some time to rack up some time together at 5v5 and see what they can accomplish together -- especially if the 2nd and 3rd lines receive softer matchups and continue to score.
It's still early and there's no guarantee that the top line will remain Nylander with Matthews and Marner, but if the Leafs do want to attempt it for awhile, now is probably the time to do it. Whether they keep it up or not, that's for Craig Berube and the coaching staff to determine.
