Toronto Maple Leafs: 3 x Number-One Centres Is Just Common Sense

It is amazing that Toronto Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe took so long just to figure out what people were saying about two seconds after the Leafs acquired Ryan O’Reilly back in February.

The Toronto Maple Leafs somehow traded just a few draft picks to get not only O’Reilly, but also Noel Acciari, about a month before the NHL Trade Deadline.

Not only was it a fantastic trade that cost about half of what it was expected to take to land O’Reilly, but O’Reilly also came with a double-retained cap hit of about $50 bucks.

As the French say: Incroyable.

But the Keefster never makes it easy.

Toronto Maple Leafs Finally Do the Right Thing

With the best top-six forwards in the entire league, it was obvious from the start that O’Reilly should centre a third line, essentially giving the Leafs three first-lines.

With three number-one centres lined up down the middle, it’s all but impossible for other teams to matchup against.

But Keefe spent two months experimenting and didn’t find any better options (because it is not possible) and so when the playoff opened…..he stacked his second line, leaving the Leafs bottom six looking horrible.

On top of that, he started getting cute with matchups, which was just embarrassing. You have Auston Matthews, dude.  He’s (at worst) the second-best player alive. I don’t care if Pavel Datsyuk himself is going to shadow him for an entire game, you just play him against anyone.

But by trying to get Matthews an easier matchup, he not only ended up down one-nothing before his best player had taken a full shift, he also destroyed his team’s confidence.

It was some of the worst coaching anyone has ever seen.

But Keefe regrouped and did what everyone knew he should have been doing all-along: he put O’Reilly at centre on the third line. Then he gave him Matthew Knies and Noel Acciari, and (wouldn’t you know it) instant best third-line in the NHL.

They hit, they grind, they cycle, they dominate.

No team has an answer for a line like this when they have to worry about a Matthews/Marner line and a Tavares/Nylander line.

You have to go back to the early cap days of Pittsburgh and Chicago to find other team’s with centres like this (Crosby, Making, Staal) (Toews, Sharp, Bolland), and even in 2016 when the Pens got a star performance out of Nick Bonino on their third line (again with Crosby and Malking above him) they won the Cup.

This is the no-brainer of the century and it’s amazing Keefe screwed around for as long as he did. I guess when you’re an actual NHL coach you want to look like you’re smarter than the crowd, but in this case, it’s just so obvious what to do.

You skate your three-number ones 1-2-3 down the middle and win most of your games.