The Toronto Maple Leafs: The Wingers for John Tavares on the 2nd Line

The Toronto Maple Leafs have one of the best one-two combinations at centre ice in the NHL.

The Toronto Maple Leafs struggled to ice a #1 centre for nearly a decade after Mats Sundin retired, but then in a span of about a year, they picked up two of them.  Auston Matthews has been the NHL’s best goal 5v5 goal scorer (which makes him the best goal scorer in the world) since the day he entered the league.  John Tavares is a future hall of famer and the best ever unrestricted free-agent to switch teams.

One large question the Leafs face this year is how to best utilize having these two players in their lineup.  For times last season, coach Sheldon Keefe paired them together with great results.  Though the sample is small, they outscored their opponents 8-1 and held an expected-goals rating in the mid sixties. (Stats from naturalstattrick.com).

In my opinion, the Leafs shouldn’t just make a super-line when they are behind, they should make it a permanent fixture of their lineup.  Since the Leafs have a fourth elite player who is also a winger,   it makes more sense to create a super-line by using everyone in their natural position, which means using Nylander-Matthews-Marner, and using John Tavares on the second line. Teams will be forced to hard match against the Matthews, Nylander, Marner line, and so Tavares will be an elite player playing secondary competition for much of the time.

The bonus, and main selling feature here, is that the Leafs are so deep that Tavares can still get some quality wingers.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Proposed Second Line

Nick Robertson is coming off a season in which he became one of the only players to score over a goal per game in the OHL while being 18 for the whole season.  All of the other players have 40 goal NHL seasons, which should tell you all you need to know about this future star.

Robertson has a great shot that would be the second best on the Leafs, and he should be in the lineup just to fire shots on the second PP unit alone.  The thing about Robertson though, is that he can’t play anywhere else except the OHL or the NHL.  He’s too good for the OHL, and the Leafs could use a lethal finisher.

If he’s going to be on the team, you might as well use him where you’ll get the most out of him, and that is clearly on a scoring line with John Tavares or Auston Matthews. In the upcoming season, Keefe should line Robertson up with Tavares on the left side.

On the right wing, the Leafs have options. Alexi Barabanov, Zach Hyman, Alex Kerfoot etc.  Personally, with Joe Thornton on the roster to potentially play 3C, moving Kerfoot into the top six is a no brainer for me.

Kerfoot is the kind of player with elite defense who could become a poor man’s Marian Hossa.  Few players are going to be that good, but Kerfoot is an elite defender who can score (last year he scored at the same per minute clip as Tavares).

As we saw with Nazem Kadri, you can’t really get them enough ice time to warrant having really important players on the third line, and I think the best way to get the most value out of Kerfoot would be to play him on the second line.

I predict that Robertson-Tavares-Kerfoot would end up being one of the best second-lines in the NHL, and Sheldon Keefe should strongly consider icing this lineup when the NHL resumes.