The Toronto Maple Leafs top pairing at their practice on Monday was TJ Brodie and Simon Benoit.
Now, Jake McCabe missed this practice, so we have to take this top pairing with a grain of salt, but the Toronto Maple Leafs need to do better than that.
First of all, the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to be hard-pressed to win any games when they dress Lyubushkin, Brodie, Edmondson and Benoit at the same time because you can't have 4 sub-NHL quality puck-movers in the lineup at once and expect to win against an NHL team.
Second of all, TJ Brodie's days as an NHL regular on a competitive team appear to be up. He might still be OK on the third pairing, but he's not going to help you in the top four at this point.
Toronto Maple Leafs Need to Make This Their New Top Defensive Pairing
Brodie has an expected goals rating under 50% over 63 games this season. That means that when he plays, the Leafs are expected to lose him minutes. That that hasn't come to fruition is likely because he spends a ton of time with Auston Matthews on the ice.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have to make use of Timothy Liljegren. Against Montreal the other night, he led the team in 5v5 ice-time, and will be seeing an expanded role from here on out since he's the team's only good right-handed player, and one of only two defenseman who can move the puck with any kind of skill.
Since he's going to play a ton, he can't be playing with Joel Edmundson even though Keefe's comments indicate that is the plan. The Leafs need to play Liljegren with Jake McCabe on their top pairing because the only way that Rielly and Lyubushkin can be in the top-four is if they are extremely sheltered, and that puts McCabe and Liljegren together almost by default.
This is just a matter of time. It's going to happen whenever Keefe realizes that he's the last guy to notice that Brodie is done. It sucks that he isn't good anymore. The twin acquisitions of Brodie and Muzzin were genius at the time and could have, nay, should have resulted in a Stanley Cup for the Toronto Maple Leafs. It's a shame it didn't and it's a shame Brodie can't help anymore.
Who knows, maybe he's got some juice left in the tank and he'll surprise us, but there is no way he can be relied upon to play big minutes at least. Time to put the Leafs to best hybrid defenseman together and see how they do.
The McCabe/Liljegren pairing has played 150 minutes together and has a 57% Expected Goals rating. So far so good, and it is, by far, Sheldon Keefe's best option.