The Toronto Maple Leafs will do what they haven’t done in almost 20 years: play in the second round.
The Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning in a glorious six game series in round one, and will be looking to make just their 5th conference final appearance since 1979, which is about 44 years.
The Leafs have not won a Stanley Cup, or even made a Finals appearance since the NHL expanded beyond six teams.
Perhaps this is the year they do, and a good way to do that is to dress their optimal lineup.
Something they didn’t do at all in the first round.
Toronto Maple Leafs Finally Dress Optimal Lineup
The Leafs didn’t dress Matthews Knies in game one. In games two through five, Michael Bunting was suspended/scratched, and Timothy Liljegren didn’t play until game six.
Game six was pretty close to their best lineup, but they played 11 forwards and seven defensemen, which is never ideal.
Tomorrow, it appears they will dress their best possible lineup.
This lineup includes Matthews knies (on the top line with with Matthews and Nylander (though I’d prefer them playing Marner with Matthews).
The second line will be Jarnkrok with Tavares and Marner.
The third line will be Acciari with Bunting centred by Ryan O’Reilly. This is a killer third line which I think features an incredible amount of tough-to-play-against-ness and which is elite defensively and can chip in more goals than most third lines.
The Panthers have Rienheart on their third line, but even they can’t match this.
The fourth line will feature Kampf centring Keroot and Aston-Reese, who is the correct choice over the mostly ineffective Lafferty. The impressive thing here is that there isn’t another team in the league with a player even close to as good as Kampf or Kerfoot on their fourth line.
On defense, the Leafs will stick with Schenn/Rielly which you can’t really complain about due to how great they were against Tampa.
There will be the very solid Brodie and McCabe pairing, as well as a Gio/Liljegren pairing. This is music to my ears because scratching Liljegren was insane, and while I’d generally consider Holl better than Schenn, that was not the case vs Tampa.
Therefore, for what might be the first time all season, and definitely the first time in the playoffs, there is nothing to criticize about the Leafs lineup, assuming what they practiced with yesterday is what they play tonight.
It’s the best lineup in the NHL.
I’ll take the Leafs in five.