No. 1: Play Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner Less
Question: “Do individual regular season goal and point totals matter?”
Answer: “No.”
Winning the Hart Trophy, Art Ross Trophy or Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy is an amazing individual accomplishment, but it doesn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of your team winning a championship.
In fact, that nightly grind of trying to win one of those awards can put extra stress and pressure on a player that it actually ends up hurting them when the playoffs start.
For instance, Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews were both top-five in TOI for forwards last year. Right beside them were Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Although McDavid and Matthews were Hart Trophy nominees and Draisaitl and Marner were point-per-game players, I’m sure they would give that up for playoff success.
On a nightly basis, Marner and Matthews were playing roughly four more minutes than Steven Stamkos and Brayden Point. Is that the reason why the Tampa Bay Lightning won a Stanley Cup? Absolutely not. However, it definitely helped in the long run, as both of those players were able to play less per night and conserve their energy for a long playoff run.
A team can potentially rely on two players for offense in the regular season, but the playoffs is different. As such, Sheldon Keefe needs to play his top two players less and play his other lines more, so they’re a more well-rounded team in the playoffs.
I know that every game and point matters in an 82-game season, but if you can’t do that by playing Matthews and Marner closer to 19-20 minutes per night, instead of 22-23 minutes, this team has a lot bigger issues.