Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube made the change midway through the club's 5-1 loss against the St. Louis Blues on Thursday.
For the first time this season, it looks like the Toronto Maple Leafs will break up their top two defense pairs when they open up a two-game road trip against the Boston Bruins on Saturday.
The Maple Leafs moved Oliver Ekman-Larsson up to the top pair on the right side of Morgan Rielly, while Chris Tanev move down to skate on the right side of Jake McCabe.
Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube made the change midway through Toronto's 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Thursday and explained why he made the move.
"(I'm) just trying to match up some of our -end players with puck movers a little bit more," Berube said. "And then McCabe and Tanev you is a good shutdown pair, right? They're both good defensively and physical and hard to play against."
Through the first eight games of the season, the Rielly-Tanev and OEL-McCabe pairs had played together more than any other. But with only three goals in their last two games, the change could help spur some more scoring as Rielly and Ekman-Larsson have had a Corsi possession rating of 58.5 percent in 35:37 of 5-on-5 time this season of 55 percent. McCabe and Tanev have a Corsi possession rating of 59 percent. Those numbers are higher than 53.5 percent that the Rielly-Tanev pair had and 57 percent that OEL-McCabe have generated.
The change will see Ekman-Larsson move to the right side despite being a left-shot defenseman. Berube doesn't expect that to be an issue for the defender who has had to play his weak side before. Meanwhile, McCabe moves to his strong side, which is something he has been used to by being paired with Tanev on the penalty kill.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMgZGS9HJjY[/embed]
"We've spent probably too much time on the penalty kill this year, but with that being said, there's a lot of familiarity just in kills together," McCabe said. "So I feel like our five-on-five play was pretty easy to play together. He's always in the right spot, it seems. He talks a lot, and I feel I do the same for him."
It's a subtle change, but the question is will it be enough to help dig Toronto out of their recent funk of two consecutive poor games against the Columbus Blue Jackets and Blues, respectively.
Corsi stats courtesy of NaturalStatTrick.com