The Toronto Maple Leafs Have a Captain on Every Line

A Captain on Every Line

It’s unclear right now what the lines will look like for Keefe. It’s almost certain that Spezza and Thornton won’t play together. There’s a good chance that they will each center one of the bottom two lines.

This leaves Tavares to cover one of the top two lines. Simple math tells us that it places a captain on three of the Toronto Maple Leafs four forward lines. In order to count that one remaining line to have a position filled by a captain, we accept Matthew’s role in the 2019 All-Star Game. It was still the NHL after all.

Sprinkle in Kerfoot and Vesey for good measure and add Muzzin’s experience to the blueline just to round things out. Thinking of the Leafs in this way is enough to make the most cynical Leafs fans excited for the upcoming season.

A closer look at what the line composition may look like will show exactly how the wealth of captaincy is spread. The top line may include Zach Hyman, Matthews, and William Nylander. We already know about Matthews’s history but it’s worth noting that Hyman was the captain of the Hamilton Red Wings, his junior team in the Canadian Junior Hockey League (CJHL).

Toronto’s other top-line would then likely feature Ilya Mikheyev, Tavares, and Mitch Marner. While we are already well aware of Tavares’s history, it’s important to note that in October of 2015, Marner was named a co-captain of the London Knights in the OHL. Marner’s teammate, Christian Dvorak, shared the duties with him.

The third line may feature Kerfoot playing with Thornton and Wayne Simmonds. That would likely set up the fourth line to mean Spezza plays with Vesey and Alexander Barabanov on his wings.