Toronto Maple Leafs Should Split Up Matthews and Marner

Auston Matthews is good enough to run a line by himself for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After becoming the first player since the 1950s to win a Hart Trophy for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Auston Matthews has shown that he’s good enough to lead his own line.

Based on the Leafs salary-cap and the structure of their team, the Leafs would be better off using Mitch Marner’s unbelievable play-making skills on the second-line with John Tavares, than with Matthews.

When Marner and Tavares last played together for a full season, the Leafs captain scored 47 goals.

It was the best season of his career and one of the best season’s in Toronto’s history, from a goal-scoring perspective. Tavares was magical that year and although Marner and Matthews are an unbelievable duo, the team would be better suited with a break-up.

Toronto Maple Leafs Should Split Up Matthews and Marner

If you want Matthews to score 60-plus goals and for Marner to register 70 assists, than sure, you can keep that duo together every night for the entire season.

However, by breaking them up, Matthews should still hit the 50 goal mark and Marner should still actually register a similar amount of assists. Marner is so underrated that his playmaking skills can ultimately help turn the clock back for Tavares and make him better.

So where does William Nylander fit and what happens to the first-line right-wing position?

Well, if Toronto still wants to give themselves the best opportunity to score, then Nylander should flip line’s with Marner. Nylander is actually an underrated passer, so a top-line of Michael Bunting-Auston Matthews-William Nylander should do perfectly fine.

If the Toronto Maple Leafs want to go top-heavy in their top-six, then someone like Nick Robertson should slide beside Marner and Tavares. Robertson is right on the verge of becoming an everyday NHLer, but playing beside Marner every night will give him the best opportunity to succeed.

Marner is at his best when he’s playing with skilled players and can find high hockey IQ guy’s in scoring positions and that’s exactly what Robertson is.

If Toronto really wanted to get creative, they could slide Nylander into the bottom-six like they did at the end of last year, but that’s probably not the best idea. Although it’s fun to stack three lines with scorers, the top-six of the line-up is on the ice usually for 65-70 percent of the time, so Nylander needs to play as much as possible.

Tavares is getting older with every season, so playing alongside Marner will only benefit him and the overall landscape of the team, as they look to finally breakthrough next season.