Did the Maple Leafs accidentally find their playoff bottom-six in Game 81?

Much discussion has been had about the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ bottom six. Despite a solid season-long performance from the team’s Core players, now including Matthew Knies, along with an emphasis on team defence and excellent goaltending all year long, the bottom two forward lines have been one area that has raised some questions as the Maple Leafs get set for the playoffs, specifically a Round 1 Battle of Ontario against the Ottawa Senators.

There have been times when the team has rolled an all-offence combo with Max Domi and Nick Robertson, and other times where they’ve tried to form a bona fide checking line with David Kampf up the middle or a hybrid of both. The reality is that the team doesn’t have your standard playoff ‘third line’, the kind that the Tampa Bay Lightning have, for example, with an elite shutdown centre in Anthony Cirelli who can also chip in with offence. Their best offensive options don’t have a lot of defence to their game, and their best defensive options don’t score too many goals.

It’s tough to predict what kind of bottom-six head coach Craig Berube will ice in Game 1, but it’s possible that they stumbled upon it on Tuesday night against the Buffalo Sabres.

The Leafs sort of iced two third lines on Tuesday. The first was a line of Steven Lorentz, Scott Laughton, and Calle Jarnkrok against Buffalo, and in addition to scoring the game-winning goal off the stick of Lorentz, the line thrived on both sides of the puck. They finished with an expected-goals rating of 73.0% and a Corsi-for rating of 62.5%, and they each played a role in Lorentz’s goal. The other line they used was made up of Bobby McMann, Pontus Holmberg, and Robertson. The latter scored an insurance goal in the final minute of that game and has the third-most goals at 5-on-5 since the 4 Nations break, so he’s making it extremely hard for Berube to keep him out of the lineup.

It’s worth noting that this was a one-game sample size against one of the worst teams in the league after they had already been eliminated from playoff contention, so these single-game results can’t be taken as gospel. That said, there’s reason to believe that running these two lines (with adjustments where necessary) will be the Leafs’ best course of action from now on.

For one, the Laughton line can be used as a checking line, but not one that will be completely deprived of offence. For as much heat as Laughton has taken for his lack of offence since he got here, he’s scored 18 goals in the past and scored five goals in the only meaningful playoff run he’s been on. Jarnkrok, despite a slow start of his own since coming off the injured reserve, has scored 20 goals in the past and has strong defensive instincts that work on a checking line. Lorentz, despite only eight goals on the year, has displayed a knack for scoring when it matters, with five of those goals being game-winners, and he possesses the same strong defensive instincts along with an elite physical game that will make life hard on any opponent that regularly goes up against him.

As for the McMann-Holmberg-Robertson line, the Leafs won’t want to have this line in defensive situations too often, which makes them the perfect ‘3B’ to the Laughton line’s 3A. McMann has 20 goals on the season, albeit with a recent slump. Robertson has been one of the Leafs’ 5-on-5 goal scorers as mentioned, and despite the limited offence from Pontus Holmberg this season, that’s more an effect of bad luck rather than incompetence. He’s become more trustworthy defensively and has some raw skill that somebody like David Kampf, for example, doesn’t necessarily have. These three players have skated enough together to have familiarity with each other, and they could be tasked primarily with O-zone starts, whereas the Laughton line would get the brunt of the work in their own end.

There’s also Max Pacioretty, who has been sidelined for months due to injury, and seems like he might be ready to go for Game 1. Where and when he might slot in is unknown at this point, but given his veteran status and decent production in a limited sample size, he may have the edge over somebody like Holmberg, for example.

The reality is, playoff demons aside, this is hands down the best opportunity the Leafs have to make a decent run. For all of the fits the Senators have given the Leafs this season and in recent years, the Leafs objectively have the better high-end talent, the better defensive corps, and the better goaltending. Their inconsistency with scoring at 5-on-5 and lack of a concrete bottom six are arguably their only two concerns, and if the Leafs can figure this out on the fly, they should be able to win 4 of their next 7 games against the Senators. Key word ‘should’. But they’re on the right track, and sticking to what worked on Tuesday might be their best chance to plug that final hole and give themselves the best odds at making a deep run.