Despite being up 2-0 in a first-round series for the first time since 2002, the Toronto Maple Leafs are making a change to their lineup at the forward position.
At morning skate on Thursday, before the puck is dropped for Game 3 at the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata, Leafs head coach Craig Berube unveiled a subtle little change to his forward lines ahead of a very important collision. Simply put, he is sitting Nick Robertson, letting the young winger watch the game from the press box, and putting in veteran scorer Max Pacioretty.
For the whole construction of the lineup, everything else will be staying the same. Pacioretty will be taking Robertson's spot on the third line next to center Max Domi and winger Bobby McMann. The other three forward lines and the three defensive pairings have remained in-tact (for now) and Anthony Stolarz will be starting once again as the Leafs' goalie.
Matthew Knies -- Auston Matthews -- Mitch Marner
Pontus Holmberg -- John Tavares -- William Nylander
Max Pacioretty -- Max Domi -- Bobby McMann
Calle Jarnkrok -- Scott Laughton -- Steven Lorentz
Jake McCabe -- Chris Tanev
Morgan Rielly -- Brandon Carlo
Simon Benoit -- Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Anthony Stolarz
(Joseph Woll)
Not to pat ourselves on the back over here at Editor In Leaf, but we called it. Specifically, Stephen Nixon called it almost immediately after the Game 2 win, that Pacioretty should be in the lineup and Robertson should be the player that is coming out.
But it just makes sense. Pacioretty will be able to provide so much more experience to this lineup and since now the Leafs are the visitors in a foreign land, they might need a more stable force in the depths of their lineup. Sure, having Robertson's scoring touch next to Domi's tenacity and McMann's overall strong impact created an interesting combination. But, in the series so far, that line had the lowest expected goals share at 5-on-5 among all four of the Leafs lines, according to Natural Stat Trick, with just 40.76 percent.
And a major cause of that imbalance was the fact that in the 10:31 TOI that that trio was on the ice for through the two games, they registered zero high-danger shot attempts. They only allowed one, to play devil's advocate, but it was a line that wasn't really able to get out of neutral. Adding Pacioretty can change that and having a much more stable shooting option as Domi and McMann run wild, should benefit the team.
We'll see how it works Thursday night on Game 3, but we're certainly agreeing with Berube's decision here. They might as well get a look.