The Toronto Maple Leafs are not taking advantage of having so many good players.
Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe is in a tough spot because the pressure to win in the NHL makes it hard to learn on the job, and even harder to experiment with new ideas because of the high stakes.
But Sheldon Keefe could make his team a lot better if he quite doing something that almost every other coach in NHL history has used: playing his best players together.
Ever since he took over, Keefe has mostly paired Matthews with Marner, and Tavares with Nylander. Instead of doing this, he should spread out the talent.
Toronto Maple Leafs Coach Should Spread Out the Talent
The differences between players at the pro level is marginal. While players like Matthews and Marner are significantly better than their peers, the majority of NHL players’ success depends more on opportunity than talent. This is because everyone at the pro level is amazing, and only a small portion of super-stars are significantly better.
But there is a limit to how good anyone can be, which makes experimenting with some non-traditional lineup ideas intriguing. What I mean by this is that while Matthews and Marner make a great combo, the amount to which each of them improves when combined is probably less than improvement you’d get from taking two lesser players and pairing one of them with each of the stars.
Specifically, teams should spread out their talent, not concentrate it.
Traditionally, an NHL team plays their top line about 16 5v5 minutes per night, their second 14, their third 12 and their fourth 10. That’s 52 5v5 minutes and 8 special teams minutes, on average, per game. It’s just an estimation, but useful enough for our purposes here.
This type of set-up is stupid for two reasons.
#1: The 1st line left-winger (Hyman) is playing more per game than the $12 million dollar Tavares or the $7 million dollar Nylander. In games where Hyman is injured and a worse player is playing on the top line, this becomes even more stupid.
#2: The difference in NHL players is so marginal to start with that a fresh 4th liner is probably better than a tired superstar. I don’t know what the number is, but clearly there is an exhaustion level at which Pierre Engvall becomes as good as Mitch Marner.
Furthermore, If elite players make non-elite players better, spreading out the talent is going to give you a better team by virtue of giving you a higher number of good players.
Also, if you spread out your talent, you will be able to exploit matchups a lot more often.
It keeps your team fresh, it will easily allow you to combine players from different lines into a super-line when necessary (behind late in the game, for example). When you do this, you’ll be even better than normal because your stars will be less tired. It is also possible that being less exhausted will improve players metal and physical health and decrease injuries. That’s just theoretical, but it seems likely.
Cold streaks won’t have such large effects – teams won’t be able to concentrate on just one or two lines with their best players. Finally, you will be able to use those Nic Petan types who are not good enough for top-six action in the NHL, but don’t grind enough to earn bottom-six minutes, giving you a much more flexible, talented roster.
What the Toronto Maple Leafs should do to take advantage of having four elite players is put one of them on a line with a player who is some combination of a grinder/defender/puck retriever type and another offensive player, and more or less split all four lines at 5v5 time evenly.
Hyman – Matthews – Kerfoot
Robertson – Marner – Galchenyuk
Mikheyev – Tavares – Brooks
Spezza – Nylander – Petan
Four lines, 12 to 13 minutes per night each. A superstar on the ice at all times. This is obviously a better setup than the current status quo, and I think the Toronto Maple Leafs – due to their unique roster construction – are in a position to try something like this.
It’s not like the results could be any worse.