Toronto Maple Leafs
'We Had Our Looks': Should Maple Leafs Forwards Mitch Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares Play Together For the Playoffs?
An instigator penalty to Max Domi forced Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe to overload his second line and they looked quite dominant against the New Jersey Devils.
As the regular season winds down, the Toronto Maple Leafs continue to tinker with their lineup. As players unexpectedly go absent for extended periods, it has forced Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe to try some new things.
After Max Domi took 17 minutes worth of penalties for instigating a fight with New Jersey Devils defenseman Simon Demec, Keefe shortened up his bench and put three of his top four forwards on a line together.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRsvlF6LTRQ[/embed]
From that point on John Tavares centered a line with Mitch Marner and William Nylander. In the 3:52 of 5-on-5 ice time they played together, the trio had a 14-1 shot attempts share for had an expected-goals percentage of 100.
"I see lots of potential in it. I wanted to get them some reps," Keefe said following his team's 6-5 loss to New Jersey on Thursday. "I see it as something that I can move to through a game, you know, and when it's hard to really get rhythm of three lines, I think it's a way to simplify that a little bit and get those guys out there. Yeah, I thought they were really good tonight."
At practice on Friday, the Leafs reverted to the lines they started the game with. The only exception was Domi, who is day-to-day with an injury.
The Leafs host the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday and could look to move Tavares, Marner and Nylander together midgame if the situation calls for it.
"The thing that made us successful last night when we were together is we weren’t really complicating things too much," Marner explained of the trio. "We were still doing a lot of the little things right, you know making sure someone was around the net, second-opportunities around the net. We had our looks unfortunately none of them really dropped."
The trio have only played 13:10 together at 5-on-5 all season long. They have an expected-goals percentage of 61, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.
The line has a lot of potential if the Leafs are in need of a quick offensive burst due to trailing in games. But perhaps some more data points are needed. The Leafs have three games remaining in the regular season to play around with it if they choose to go that route.
Related
News from THN.com