Editor In Leaf
Fansided

Toronto Maple Leafs Roundtable: Biggest Storylines Out of Training Camp

By Wilbert Timmermans

TORONTO, ONTARIO - AUGUST 07: John Tavares #91 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his third period goal at 16:54 with Morgan Rielly #44, William Nylander #88, Auston Matthews #34, Zach Hyman #11 amd Mitchell Marner #16 against the Columbus Blue Jackets in Game Four of the Eastern Conference Qualification Round prior to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on August 07, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ONTARIO - AUGUST 07: John Tavares #91 of the Toronto Maple Leafs celebrates his third period goal at 16:54 with Morgan Rielly #44, William Nylander #88, Auston Matthews #34, Zach Hyman #11 amd Mitchell Marner #16 against the Columbus Blue Jackets in Game Four of the Eastern Conference Qualification Round prior to the 2020 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at Scotiabank Arena on August 07, 2020 in Toronto, Ontario. (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
5 of 7
Next
Toronto Maple Leafs
TORONTO, ONTARIO – AUGUST 09: Auston Matthews #34 and Mitchell Marner #16 of the Toronto Maple Leafs   (Photo by Andre Ringuette/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images) /

Jordan Maresky

The biggest storyline to come out of the Toronto Maple Leafs training camp is the decision to balance both of the team’s powerplay units.

Opposed to what we’ve seen throughout the league, head coach Sheldon Keefe and assistant coach Manny Malhotra decided to balance them out, during Saturday’s Blue and White scrimmage, we got the first opportunity to see Keefe’s brand new powerplay set up with the two groups looking like this;

1st unit: Rielly – Matthews – Thornton – Marner – Simmonds

2nd unit: Lehtonen – Nylander – Tavares – Hyman – Robertson/Spezza

This is a slight deviation from some of the tendencies we saw during the early portions of Keefe’s tenure. Most notably, he was unafraid to ride his stars and promote their ice time to levels we had never seen before.

From his arrival until the end of the calendar year in 2019, each of Marner, Matthews, and Tavares saw significant increases in even-strength ice time. Among forwards, Marner jumped from 140th under Babcock to 3rd under Keefe. Matthews from 12th to 6th. Tavares from 33rd to 2nd (per Sportsnet).

If you have three superstar forwards, you should be playing them a lot and getting their most absolute value.

A balanced powerplay attack in the 20-21 season is the exact opposite of that. You want your best goal scorer on the ice for as long as possible. Matthews could be on the ice for 60 to 80 seconds of the possible 120, leaving potentially only 40 seconds for the Tavares-led unit to work with. This does not seem ideal for maximizing your captain’s value.

Home/Editorials