The Toronto Maple Leafs new coach Craig Berube has struggled to find a consistently good lineup with the players provided to him by GM Brad Treliving.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have one of the best groups of forwards in the NHL, likely only behind the Dallas Stars, but the way in which they deploy their lineup makes them worse than they have to be.
There are several main things the Leafs could do to improve their play at 5v5, and one of those is to dress better lineups that stretch the talent and don't leave the Leafs with a great top six and a bad bottom six.
Take for example the Rangers game on Thursday: The Matthews and Tavares lines were fantastic and the Leafs won easily. Since they won, it didn't matter, but the Domi/Robertson and Kampf/Laughton lines were garbage, and that will matter in the playoffs. (stats naturalstattrack.com).
The Toronto Maple Leafs should use this lineup for game 1 of the playoffs
The Leafs two main lineup problems are 1) they concentrate talent too heavily at the top of the lineup and 2) they do not have a reasonable third-line centre option, and in order for Max Domi to win his minutes on the third-line, they have to shelter him so much that Matthews and Marner and up playing much harder minutes which ends up hurting the team.
So, in order to compensate for these things, the Leafs must first split up Matthews, Marner and Nylander onto separate lines. They should also build a defensive line that can allow the top two lines to take as many offensive zone faceoffs as possible.
The first line should be Matthew Knies, Auston Matthews and Max Domi. Domi can score and his defense won't be an issue. It's idiotic to play him at centre, and this is what Berube should have been doing all season.
The second line should be Bobby McMann, John Tavares and William Nylander. If the Leafs could shelter this line, instead of the Domi/Robertson line, they'd win a ton more games. This is their scoring line that should get the prime zone starts.
The third line should be able to score and also provide great defense. Calle Jarnkrok, David Kampf and Mitch Marner could shutdown any line in hockey and probably score some goals as well. It's a luxury to be able to use someone like Marner in a role like this, and it will make the Leafs so much harder to play against. I know Kampf has almost zero value at this point, but using him as a defensive player and playing him against actual top players is really the only way he's useful.
The fourth line should be for scoring. You could try Robertson - Laughton - Steeves with Holmberg as the next man up. There is no need to play Max Pacioretty or Steven Lorentz in the playoffs.
With this lineup, the Leafs will have their best chance to win. I recommend that Berube implement it right away so that it has a few weeks to gel.