Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe has put Mitch Marner in defensive situations before. Now he’s going to experiment by playing him on defense in certain situations.
Mitch Marner lined up on defense alongside Morgan Rielly for a few shifts during the second group of Maple Leafs practice on Thursday.
No, this wasn’t Sheldon Keefe’s way of continuing the circus that was last night that saw forwards Alex Kerfoot and Calle Jarnkrok become defensemen after injuries to Jordie Benn and Carl Dahlstrom. The Maple Leafs’ coach had the idea of Marner lining up on defense as far back as the opening of camp.”
“Whether we’re trying to score a goal, playing from behind or whatever the case might be that we might give him some opportunity there just to see what it looks like,” Keefe said of the discussion. “It’s something we’ll continue to look at through the pre-season and make a determination from there on how we might use it.”
Marner has become an established penalty killer under Keefe over the last couple of seasons, so defensive situations are nothing new for the forward. Putting out a fourth offensive player when trailing as another point of pressure before having to pull the goaltender creates a different dynamic when attempting to erase a lead.
“The players themselves have to have a certain skill set, intelligence and speed,” Keefe said of utilizing the strategy. “Forwards move around a lot now and end up having to cover and play on defense far more frequently than in the history of the game.”
The Maple Leafs do this quite frequently when a puck carrier elects to call his own number into the zone or pinch while a forward ends up skating back to cover off the position. But in Marner’s case, if he can backcheck to the same level of a defenseman, there is a possibility it could work.
Some of this stems from the way players are coming into the game.
For a while, there haven’t been too many offensive defenseman that are as equally disciplined on the back end to match their scoring prowess.
“I think he’d do well there and be considered an offensive-defenseman,” Rielly said of Marner. “We’re open to trying anything so move him back, it just proves we gave a dynamic group of forwards that can do a multitude of different things.”
New York Rangers d-man Adam Fox and Colorado Avalanche blue liner Cale Makar are just a couple of players who have changed the perception.
“You look at the way Cale Makar plays the game, there’s a lot of young kids that are growing up that want to look like that,” Keefe said. “I think there’s just so much opportunity there, but how close we are to making it on a full-time basis, I’m not quite sure.”
With the Leafs short on right-shot d-men, Marner’s ability to shoot from that side is another helpful part of the experiment.
“He’s a very highly offensive player that can help us an allowed us to add another high-impact forward like (William) Nylander and something worth looking at, I think.”
With Rasmus Sandin slated to join the team after signing a two-year, $2.8 million contract earlier in the day, Toronto’s urgency to use the strategy wains a bit. But outside of TJ Brodie, the Leafs haven’t found a reliable partner for Rielly since camp has opened.
Marner recorded a career-high 35 goals and 97 points in 72 games last season.