Steven Lorentz hasn't played much center with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but he's done it in the past.
One day before Toronto's matchup against the New Jersey Devils, head coach Craig Berube switched up the lines. Among the changes was moving Lorentz, who's been a winger for the majority of his time with the Maple Leafs, to the middle, between Nick Robertson and Calle Jarnkrok.
"Yeah, it's something I'm familiar with. I played a couple of years in Carolina. I was kind of all over the map there and then San Jose, I was center for quite a while, so it's definitely not something that's new to me," Lorentz said.
The forward has had a fascinating start to his second season with the Maple Leafs. He's appeared in three of Toronto's six games thus far after suffering an upper-body injury on Oct. 11 against the Detroit Red Wings, after taking a Ben Chiarot hit up high.
He returned to the lineup on Oct. 18 against the Seattle Kraken, playing 13:16 and registering two shots on goal. Lorentz, in three games this season, has two assists — both coming in Toronto's home-opener win over the Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 8.
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During his 80 games with the San Jose Sharks in 2022-23, Lorentz took 547 faceoffs and won 47.9 percent. He's often a player who's working on faceoffs during Maple Leafs practice, too.
"Very comfortable taking faceoffs," he said, before adding what else is important when playing center.
"I think the big thing is the defensive zone coverage. It's almost like less is more. You don't want to get running around too much and just kind of run yourself out of gas. You kind of just have to be a little bit more patient and survey, kind of work with your defense. I talked to some of those guys. We've got some veterans back there that obviously will help out, and if I'm in the right spot and if I need to go to a guy, they'll be able to tell me they can kind of see the whole play in front of them.
"So, they'll be very good at helping me out. There's obviously going to be, maybe not a learning curve, but there's going to be some maybe small mistakes along the way, but that's the name of the game. So I'm excited to get back, and it's a good challenge for me."
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During most of his tenure in Toronto, Lorentz has played on both the left and right wings. The 29-year-old has tallied 21 points (eight goals, 13 assists) in 83 regular-season games, plus two assists in 13 playoff games since signing with the Maple Leafs just over one year ago.
Lorentz inked a three-year, $4.05 million extension on June 30. The contract carries an annual average value of $1.35 million.
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