The Maple Leafs Lines in My Opinion

With the William Nylander contract negotiation saga finally coming to an end head coach Mike Babcock has some line up decisions to make. So I thought it would be fun to try and figure out what I would do with the lines.

Keep in mind what I am about to propose is not what I think will happen, but rather what I would like to happen. Babs has his favourites and at the end of the day he’s the Fifty Million dollar man and I am not for a reason.

Forward Lines

Kapanen — Matthews — Nylander

Kapanen is like the ultimate jack of all trades. He’s fast (I believe one of the fastest in the league) he can shoot and he is very good defensively. He’s basically a faster more talented Hyman, so you don’t lose that “grinder” aspect that Babs loves so much.

Johnsson — Tavares — Marner

But what about Hyman! Nope, sorry I love Zach, I mean how can you not? He works hard every night, fights for pucks, heck he even writes children’s books! What Hyman isn’t great at, at the NHL level, is finishing or for that matter setting up goals. He’ll fight like a bulldog, he’ll get that puck, but he won’t do a lot with it. Johnsson on the other hand is another Marlie that was taught “right”. He’s solid defensively, but has far more offensive upside over Zach. It also means he gets to play his natural side.

Marleau — Kadri — Hyman

Everyone keeps saying Kadri is a shut down centre, fine, put him on a shut down line then. Again we have both wingers playing their strong sides in this scenario. All three players are good at puck retrieval, all three are strong defensively and Kadri and Marleau provide the scoring touch. How this hasn’t happened I am not sure, maybe because Babs doesn’t want Hyman out of the top six? At the end of the day on this team he fits here better than on either of the higher powered scoring lines.

The fourth line…

This is where it gets complicated. All the Leafs this year have been great in my opinion. They’ve all worked hard, they’ve all shown they can contribute on a very good hockey club, but someone has to go. That person in my opinion is Freddy the Goat. Gauthier does NOT deserve to lose his spot, he’s finally become that player everyone kept telling me he was and I couldn’t see, but he’s the lowest scoring player on the team and someone has to go.

So the fourth line can platoon in my opinion. With any combination of Brown, Ennis and Leivo on the wing with Lindholm centering the line. So the combos could look like this on any given night

Brown — Lindholm — Leivo
Ennis — Lindholm — Brown
Ennis — Lindholm — Leivo

The third set is likely never going to happen, and honestly probably shouldn’t. Brown is too good to sit in the press box, even if he has had a slow start, and he is a huge part of the Leafs penalty kill. Maybe I shouldn’t even have included it lol.

The Power Play

The Leafs power play has been absolutely lethal, and that is with a second unit that had two fourth liners on it. It just got a LOT more dangerous.

PP1
Matthews — Tavares — Kadri
Rielly — Marner

Reasoning… if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

PP2

Johnsson— Nylander — Levio
Gardiner — Kapanen

I know Willy is far more likely to end up playing the rover on this line like Marner does on the first unit. But he is the most talented centre not on that first unit by a long shot, so I have to slot him there. Kapanen gets the rover position instead, he’s great defensively and fast, having him there helps mitigate any short handed rushes and face it the guy can shoot.

The Penalty Kill

This is one thing about the Leafs that excites me this year. I honestly always hated our PK. Polak and Hainsey, that brutal box defense with little to no pressure. But Babs put Marner on the PK this year, not a lot but enough, and it’s awesome. His playmaking abilities, Kappy’s speed. We are actually a threat to score short handed goals this year and that is awesome! So let’s do that a bit more. These are some interesting units to consider, and I’ll describe usage below.

Brown — Lindholm
Tavares — Marner
Kapanen — Hyman/Nylander

Brown and Lindholm are two of our best penalty killers. This is the shut down pair, they’re both fast and tenacious enough to maybe get a scoring chance once in a while, but that’s not the point here.

Tavares and Marner are both proving they can play a defensive game, and we all know they can put the puck in the net. This is sort of a mid risk/reward scenario, not something you would start a penalty kill with, but for the last 30 seconds or so it works.

Kapanen and Hyman, this is very close to the Brown / Lindholm pairing in defensive responsibility but more dangerous offensively because of Hyman’s tenacity and Kapanen’s speed.

Kapanen and Nylander… yeah I can hear it now lol. The thing is Willy is a lot better defensively than people give him credit for and he can play centre and winning faceoffs on the PK is important. This isn’t one I’d use often, but in the right circumstance I absolutely would. Say we’re down by a goal and take a penalty with under 5 minutes to play. Kappy is one of our best penalty killers anyway, Nylander is nearly as fast, and incredibly talented. Not for every day use, but a nice tool to have in the box.

Defense

Even though Willy doesn’t affect the defense at all, I still have a few changes I would like to see, just for the hell of it.

Gardiner — Rielly

High risk, absolutely massive reward. The very few times they’ve played together their numbers are astronomical. These two are without question our most talented defensemen and they play well together. Excellent passing and skating, good zone exits. Jake takes a lot of shit, but honestly he’s been our best defender this year, cutting way back on the brain fart mistakes of the past. Conversely, Morgan has been a monster offensively but is still struggling in his own end on coverage, and Hainsey isn’t the solution to that. Giving Morgan a more talented partner to play the puck to would help a lot.

Dermott — Ozighanov

Travis Dermott is the real deal. He’s still a kid, he still makes kid mistakes sometimes, but he is absolutely talented enough to be on the second pairing. He’s intelligent, he doesn’t panic and he’s tough. Oz on the second pairing might be a bit concerning and I considered pairing Zaitsev here but I’ll explain why I didn’t below.

Hainsey — Zaitsev

Ron Hainsey is taking a ton of shit this year, and to be honest a lot of it is deserved. His foot speed is not great, his zone exits have been lacking and his coverage is mediocre at best. That being said somehow the guy still has the best plus minus on the team. Zaitsev has been… a let down. I hate saying that because he’s such a likable guy, but at $4.5m he is just not what we expected. I worry that putting him on the third pairing will hurt his confidence, but that isn’t why he’s here. He’s here because the idea of Oz and Hainsey scares me. This pairing might be scary if they get caught against a first line but handling normal third pairing duties I think they’d be just fine. This also allows us not to burn Hainsey out like it felt we did last year.

This is all keeping in mind that we still have Rosen and Borgman tearing up the AHL if adjustments need to be made, and Holl and Marancin sitting in the press box (I expect one of those two to be the one waived to fit Willy in)

Conclusion

Do I expect Babcock to make these changes? Probably some of them, I am betting that Kappy, Auston, Willy line gets a shot, and I doubt the second power play is much different than what I proposed, but not all of them. Least likely is seeing those PK units other than the safe ones with Marner sprinkled in.

But this was fun, throughout writing this I shifted things around a few times. Thought out why was I doing this? Why did I feel it was an improvement? etc.

Go Leafs Go!