Top 5 Burnings Questions for the Toronto Maple Leafs Heading into 2024-25

1. Who Will Play Centre?

The Toronto Maple Leafs, their fans and various hockey analysts don't really know what to expect from new Leafs coach Craig Berube, so a lot of what you read is just people assuiming he'll more or less follow Sheldon Keefe's lead in icing a lineup.

Last time we saw the Leafs they had Auston Matthews as their top line centre, which is the only certain thing about their lineup this year.

They followed up with John Tavares who has spent the last six years playing 2C for the Leafs. Pontus Holmber was 3C and David Kampf was 4C.

It's amazing people complain about Mitch Marner's performance when the GM entered the playoffs with Pontus Holmberg playing third-line-centre. He's a nice player but he needs to be on the fourth line and as for David Kampf, he needs to be off the team as fast as humanly possible.

This year's centres are currently up in the air. Obviously Matthews is 1C but then what?

In my opinion, Max Domi is a bad opition to play centre for two reasons. 1: He's so bad defensively that his line needs extreme sheltering to win their minutes, which makes it very hard to find good matchups for the Leafs best players.

2: When he was paired with Matthews he scored 5v5 points at a rate higher than Connor McDavid has ever finished a full season with.

You can't turn your back on that.

I would pair Domi/Matthews with William Nylander because I think Nylander could run wild with defense focusing mostly on Matthews.

This would also free up Mitch Marner to anchor a second line. Since he's strong without the puck and a great passer, he's a natural fit at centre-ice even though he's been a winger since he made the NHL. Marner at 2C gives the Leafs so many more options.

Without Marner playing C, they don't have a third-line centre and their bottom-six looks weak. Put Marner at 2C and then you have John Tavares - yet to decline at age 33 - getting him some easier minutes where you could break him in with one of the rookies (or both of them).

This leaves Pontus Holmberg to centre the 4th line, and I think that's a great fit.

Matthews-Marner-Tavares-Holmberg gives the Leafs one of the best centre-ice situations in the league, maybe even the best.