It’s a rare Saturday without a Maple Leafs game. This scheduling phenomenon doesn’t occur again until the league breaks for the Four Nations gimmick Faceoff, but then once more shortly after on March 1st, the final Leafless Saturday of the season.
This Saturday also marks the end of the Leafs temporary slowdown in the schedule, and while the rest of November isn’t exactly an intense schedule, December features four back-to-backs, each of the home and away variety, and 15 games crammed into a month at also features a short break for Christmas, (the Leafs having the bare minimum of the 24th-26th off.) You certainly can’t fault the Leafs for giving as many players as possible some time to heal right now and December will be the month where having two high performing goaltenders will do the team a ton of good.
Here are some other stray thoughts on a night that seems perfect to check out Gladiator 2…
Domi needs to return to wing
I’ll touch more on the gift that is Fraser Minten in a bit but when Auston Matthews and Max Domi return to the lineup that should be the end of Domi’s time as a centre until injuries force as a necessity.
Recognizing that whatever is ailing Max has likely put a dent in his production this season, playing centre with a rotation cast of often third line talent is part of what has contributed to Domi going pointless in the last 13 games. He also has a goalless streak which dates back to last season and exceeds 20 games.
That said, March and April were a couple of Domi’s most productive months as a Maple Leaf for a couple of reasons. The first being that he was playing on the wing for the majority of that time, the second being that he was placed with Auston Matthews.
What we have seen from Mitch Marner in the games where Auston Matthews has been absent is that Mitch has elevated his game away from Matthews and has been a less predictable and creative option and has an improved statline of five goals and nine assists in nine games in November, in contrast to Mitch’s one goal, and 12 points in 11 games in October. (Still not a terrible stat line, but not an $11M performance.)
Marner’s success away from Matthews has opened a door for Domi to continue his success with Auston, and with Fraser Minten looking like a viable 3C option, optimizing Domi and Marner seems like the right course of action.
Keep the kids around
It seems unlikely that as players like Kampf, Pacioretty, Domi, and Matthews return from their injuries that the Leafs will be able to keep all of Fraser Minten, Nikita Grebenkin, and Alex Steeves, but a round of applause to that trio for likely making the decision as hard as possible.
Recognizing that it has only been one game for Grebenkin and Minten, and the numbers on Minten show that his line was pinned in the Leafs zone 5v5, the amount of promise and upside on this duo at the very least warrants as long a look as the Leafs can afford to give them.
And as for Steeves, he continues to hit absolutely everyone and has given the Leafs another energy option that seems to fit in with Lorentz and Dewar, and it will be interesting to see if he too can build his case.
The Marlies trio’s success is coming at a time when players like David Kampf, Ryan Reaves, and Nick Robertson have been particularly underwhelming in the bottom six. While Robertson’s game has grown somewhat, there needs to be an acknowledgement that maybe the floodgates will never open and miscasting him is doing no one any favours.
David Kampf’s role seems to have been lost several times over as Minten, Holmberg, Dewar, and Lorentz have all made cases for performing his job at half or one third of the price. While Kampf’s experience at centre as well as his comfort on the penalty kill, having him block the developing upside of the Leafs rookies seems short sighted.
And that really brings us back to where it always ends up and that is with Ryan Reaves and how his absence always seems to lend itself to an improved Leafs’ bottom six forward group. What Reaves brings to the table is exactly what he is presently suspended for. He hasn’t fought this year and honestly, what’s even the point if he did? Domi, Holmberg, and McCabe have all fought this year and in addition to them, Knies, Benoit, and McMann had fights for the Leafs last season. There is also the fact that Nikita Grebenkin looks like he’ll bring a lot of hard hitting, sour pain in the ass energy that the Leafs could use with some hockey and cap upside.
The Leafs need to make some tough decisions on their veteran players. They are no longer in a position where they need a bottom six laden with experience as their top six now has that in abundance, the decisions should be based on who can provide Toronto with the best hockey now and in the future, and that seems to involve the kids.
Powerplay can’t revert to its old ways
One of the success stories in Auston Matthews’ absence has been the re-emergence of the Leafs’ powerplay. Some of this just happens to be the team recognizing that parking players on the opposition’s blueline and have them stumble their way into the zone wasn’t sustainable to their success and they moved on from it. The other piece of success comes from Mitch Marner and often other Leafs exclusively looking for Auston Matthews as the finisher on the powerplay.
In Matthews’ absence 11 of the Leafs’ 22 goals have come on the powerplay. With Knies joining the top unit, all five of the top unit players (Nylander, Tavares, Marner, Knies, and Rielly) have scored at least one goal.
I’m certainly not advocating for Auston Matthews being put on the second unit, but there does need to be some consideration given to how Toronto can keep their balanced, anyone of us could score approach going, and potentially also have a “get the puck to Matthews” line as well.
One of the biggest things with Marner is that a lot of his creativity is lost on putting him with Matthews. He can elevate scoring chances for anyone, and Matthews doesn’t need him as much as Auston needs just good reliable passers and puck movers. Matthews with Rielly and Domi gets a lot of the work done already, and if you put him with additional options like Nylander and a net presence like Knies, and you’ve got a pretty solid top unit that has left you with John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson as a pretty good starting point for a second unit, one that gets a nice upgrade when Max Pacioretty returns too.
Rounding out a second unit with players like McMann, Robertson, whomever isn’t a bad option, but there is also no reason you can’t push some of the first unit players to dip further into the full two minutes of a powerplay depending on how static the players have been in the zone. Keeping Nylander or Matthews out when possible is ideally what gives the Leafs the best balance, helps keep things going.
Hopefully there is also an appreciation given to how much the powerplay has been overthought in the past couple of seasons and a junior hockey, light on the systems approach is best. The Leafs aren’t short on offensive talent and a green light to attack is going to do a lot more than finding the right player and right shot. Throwing the puck to the net or aggressively driving into the offensive zone creating messy broken plays has worked in recent games because the Leafs have the talent to finish on them. There is something to be said for embracing the simplicity that their talent affords them.
This article first appeared on TheLeafsnation and was syndicated with permission.
