Toronto Maple Leafs: How Mike Babcock Should Set His Lines
By James Tanner
Mike Babcock is firmly in command as the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
James Tanner, hockey enthusiast, is never going to coach the Toronto Maple Leafs. For one, that’d mean moving out of my mom’s basement, and that isn’t ever going to happen. Two, I am somewhat unqualified.
But, just for fun, let’s pretend I was in charge.
What would I do? What would my lines be? I bet you stayed up late last night pondering just this question.
So here goes:
Line One
Josh Leivo – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
Hey, I like Zach Hyman as much as the next guy, but you play to your strengths. The Leafs lack grit and they lack defensive forwards and their blue line is borderline terrible. Their goal should be to win every game by six goals.
So, I take the shooting frequency of Josh Leivo and I add it to what could be the best duo in the NHL . I love this line. Leiov himself is a great shot creator, but he’ll get open so much with Matthews on the ice, and Marner will be there to feed them both with his beautiful, Paul Kariya-esque take on playing wing in the NHL.
Josh Leivo can create shots. He can blast the puck. If someone ever gives him ice time, he’ll score 30 goals. Josh Leivo has never been given an extended shot with top tier linemates, but his stats so far in the NHL suggest that if given that shot, he’ll succeed. All this guy does is drive possession, create scoring chances and fire shots at the net.
As for Marner and Matthews, everyone knows they want to play together, so let them.
Line Two
Andreas Johnsson – John Tavares – William Nylander
Andreas Johnsson almost won the AHL scoring scoring title. Nothing is more annoying to me than when people try to relegate him to the fourth line. He should not be losing out on ice time to Marleau or Hyman – get real! This is a legit NHL player whose speed is a weapon. If given the opportunity, he’ll run with it.
John Tavares is going to shred secondary defensive units, and William Nylander is a player on the verge of exploding. I am such a huge Nylander fan, and I think the chemistry he has with Matthews would easily transfer to Tavares who himself is a goal-scoring centre.
This gives the Leafs two lines worth of players who could all score 30 goals. Of course, there probably isn’t enough pucks to go around to make that happen, but it’s all about options.
Line Three
Zach Hyman – Nazem Kadri – Kasperi Kapanen
This line offers speed, tenacity, grit and a somewhat decent defensive acumen. It’s nice change-up to the make-up of the first two lines. Oh, and it is extremely fast.
I love this line, and I hope we see it for real this year in the NHL.
Line Four
Tyler Ennis – Patrick Marleau – Connor Brown
I can already hear people saying that it’s disrespectful to put Marleau on the fourth line. Give me a break. Marleau is 39 years old when the season started. Last year, he did score 27 goals, but he did it while posting the overall 5v5 offensive numbers of the very bottom of what could be considered acceptable top-six production. So his offense was borderline third line, but his defense was terrible: he allows nearly 34 shots against per 60 minutes of ice time. Unacceptable.
You can get away with Marleau on the wing somewhere above the fourth line, but with so many better players available it would be a legacy move. Legacy moves are OK when you’re not trying to win, but the Leafs need to win their division to avoid playing Tampa or Boston in the first round.
Next. Tavares: Overrated or As Good As Advertised?. dark
That means Marleau has to take a demotion. It’s inevitable. Since the fourth line barely has to play, and since it has two NHL wingers who are way better than any fourth line deserves, I think he’d be fine in this role. A Marleau, Ennis, Brown combo is a pretty sweet fourth line. They should get some (relatively) easy minutes and rack up quite a few goals.
If Marleau can’t hack it, then you have Par Lindholm waiting in the wings.