Toronto Maple Leafs Will Have to Try Nylander at Centre

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost game one, but the score seemed secondary after a horrific injury to  John Tavares.

The Toronto Maple Leafs captain thankfully has been discharged from the hospital, but likely won’t play for a while.  With head injuries it is impossible to even guess at a timeline, so the Leafs will just have to move foreword without one of their best players for the time being.

As to the actual game, it was a weird one – not only did Paul Byron do a Mario Lemieux impression, but the Leafs were penalized three times for pucks over the glass,   hit two goal posts, and Auston Matthews didn’t score.

The Leafs played well and other than the five minutes after the Tavares hit, were by far the better team.  They killed off five penalties, had 58% puck possession and 60% of the shots 5v5.  Once again their inability to score on the power-play cost them, but really, this game was won by Carey Price who still had to be Columbus-Playoffs-2020-Good in order for the Habs to win.

Auston Matthews was incredible: Despite not scoring, he had 8 shots, and seven individual scoring chances.  At 5v5 the Leafs had 67% puck possession and outshot the Habs 15-5 with Matthews on the ice.  All things considered, the Leafs usually win this game. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).

Toronto Maple Leafs New Second Line Centre

With Tavares out, the Leafs are going to have to make some adjustments.  Already at practice today Nash is out for Engvall, and Galchenyuk is in for Tavares.

I don’t think either player should have sat game one (personally I wouldn’t have dressed Nash or Thornton) and I am certainly glad to see them back, though I do wish it wasn’t because Tavares is hurt.

As to who plays centre, that is a mystery, though I assume we will find out soon.

Nylander has playoff experience playing centre and is clearly the best option, as he’s really the Leafs only elite forward below the first line.  Foligno is only able to play on a second line in a grinder style at this point, Nash and Spezza and Thornton are all fourth liners who can’t handle second line competition. (Post Publication Note: It appears that the Leafs are making the terrible decision to use Foligno at centre. This is a mistake, as Foligno is barely a second line player at this point in his career, and that’s only as a grinding winger.  We’ll see how this goes).

As I see it, the Leafs have only two realistic options: William Nylander (absolutely great last night, by the way) and Alex Kerfoot.  I guess a mad man might try Engvall there, but I doubt it.

Nylander has the ability to be one of the NHL’s best players when he’s at the top of his game, and he might actually transition to centre as Tavares gets older anyways.  Due to his elite vision and passing, not to mention his close-to-the-best-in-the-NHL transition game, I think Nylander is the Leafs best option to replace Tavares on line two.

It will be interesting to see what the coach does.