Craig Berube hints at massive lineup shakeup for Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs have largely gone with locked-in pairings throughout their lineup -- but things can drastically change soon.

Whether it is Auston Matthews with Matthew Knies or John Tavares with William Nylander, there have been cemented duos in the Leafs' top six. That is what has worked before, and it's what head coach Craig Berube has kept throughout the start of this season. But unfortunately, after an embarrassing 5-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils, Toronto's head coach might just end up looking for a spark of scoring from somewhere and that can involve splitting those pairs up.

Specifically, when it comes to Nylander, to put him as the full-time right wing next to Matthews and Knies.

"It could be," Berube said of putting a Knies-Matthews-Nylander line together. "I always want a little balance, but it's definitely something that I'm thinking about."

Berube just pondering it for a second gives us enough reason to think that it could end up happening. This top-heavy lineup could just be a way for the Leafs to get out of this little rut they find themselves in.

During this season, Knies, Nylander, and Matthews have been on the ice together at 5-on-5 for a total of 20 minutes and 49 seconds through the seven games. During that time, the Leafs have actually not dominated like we would assume they would. A 50.88 percent of the shot attempt share, 48.98 percent of the expected goals share, and they were outscored 2-1 as well, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Now, it's such a small sample size and most likely that trio was deployed during tough in-game situations where the entire team was playing like garbage, so it's not completely accurate to judge on those totals. But, we would hope for a little bit more dominance coming from three of the Leafs' best forwards all on one single line.

What the rest of the Leafs' lineup could look like

In that situation, what would the other three lines look like? John Tavares would suddenly have his choice of wingers like Max Domi or Nick Robertson as realistic options on the right side to go with Matias Maccelli. And then the trickle effect takes place.

While that second line without Nylander becomes a whole lot less effective, the opposing team would have to spend so much of their defensive energy on that first line, so then maybe someone like Bobby McMann on the third, or potentially even Calle Jarnkrok getting easy matchups, could pot in a couple more goals than he would have otherwise.

No one will know what happens unless this change does take place, but right now the Leafs need anything to get them going and if that means putting Nylander on the top line, then put Nylander on the top line.

Toronto has won just two of their seven games in regulation and are currently on a two-game losing streak -- two games where the Leafs completely no-showed in all areas of the ice. Fortunately, this weekend they have a home-and-home against the lowly Buffalo Sabres to maybe get them back to their winning ways after a 3-3-1 start to the season.