Leafs catch an overtime break
Matthews, Marner and Nylander on the top line flops in first attempt, but they still won
Team gets valuable two points as coach shows he’s not afraid to shake things up on top line,
Oh, it was shiny. Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, all together: You could call it the Money Line, if you’re still one of those people who names lines. Do people really still do that? Sometimes it feels like one item in hockey’s vast anachronism collection.
Over the previous three years Mike Babcock only tried these three together in very rare emergencies; he would barely put Matthews and Marner together, and afterwards he’d grouse, as predictable as the Prairie sunrise, that he didn’t much like it. Babcock may as well have coached with a great novelty vaudeville cane when they played together, ready to yank one or both offstage.
But Tuesday night, Sheldon Keefe rolled nearly $30 million (U.S.) worth of stars out on his top line, with John Tavares relied upon to lift up Alex Kerfoot and Zach Hyman on the second. Keefe has not been averse to experimentation, even as his Toronto Maple Leafs wobble on the edge of playoff contention. Well, he experimented.
“It was a combination of a little bit of curiosity and how that might play out, and also I was happy with the lineup of Kerfoot, Tavares and Hyman, so I thought the timing was right to try such a thing,” Keefe said after Toronto’s 3-2 overtime win against the Arizona Coyotes. “In terms of how it went, I didn’t think it went very well, but I also don’t know that it’s fair to judge it on a night like this. Willie wasn’t himself tonight.”
Nylander was getting over the flu that has been going around, but then so was Tavares, and he played 231⁄ 2 minutes and set up Toronto’s second goal.
But in the first attempt, it was a flop. The line was on the ice as the Leafs gave up a three-on-one that became a threeon-two because Marner was at the point and hustled his behind back, and then technically became a five-on-two before Marner blocked a shot. Matthews and Nylander were on the ice for Arizona’s second goal, scored by the
Coyotes’ fourth line: It started with a Rasmus Sandin turnover, and featured Matthews overskating a puck and Nylander blowing the zone, though that latter part may not have made a difference. And Carl Soderberg nearly scored on a two-on-one against the big line, and Toronto was lucky he didn’t.
But it was the offence that didn’t click at all, and that was what you looked for. At five-onfive, the Leafs were outshot 16-8 with Matthews on the ice, 14-8 with Nylander and just 9-6 for Marner, who logged a mammoth 8:28 of his 25 minutes on special teams.
In other words, they didn’t have the puck a lot. You wondered about diminishing returns. Won’t Marner and Nylander and Matthews have the puck less if they’re sharing it, versus being split over two lines? Do they have enough puck retrieval? And can their glittering skills combine to become something fabulous?
“I think it could be very creative, (and) overwhelming in terms of their skill set,” said Keefe. “Also, one of the reasons why I became very confident to try it is just the way that Auston and Mitch have been playing — skating and tracking and defending and all those types of things. So I’m not really concerned about anything defensively. It’s more just offensively, just making sure that they don’t overdo it, or try to hold it trying to find each other instead of attacking the net. So I expected there to be a bit of a feeling-out process and that.
“Also, I didn’t think any of the three were at their best today, so it’s tough day to judge that and I don’t know whether we’ll stick with it or not.”
In fairness, it was new. They had never played more than 3:21 together in a game. In the past four years they had been on the ice together at five-onfive for 27 minutes and 12 seconds, during which the Leafs out-attempted opponents almost two to one, outshot them 19-14, and outscored them 1-0. That Keefe is doing this as the Leafs try to gain some traction indicates that he isn’t scared to try things, and that he is still searching for the best version of this thing. He admitted he worried a little about scoring balance, but also implied that he trusted Tavares to drive a second line.
“It’s something I’m conscious of it, but you’re also trying to find the offset with it,” said Keefe. “Can we have one line that’s really dominant there? But also, I felt very comfortable with the Tavares line, they’ve been dominant in their own right. So there’s still pretty good balance there, we just kind of changed the top six and looked at it. But like I said, we’ve tried different things throughout my time here, and that’s one thing that we haven’t tried quite yet.”
What if? Keefe’s willingness to try things that Babcock wouldn’t has generally worked out. One game is a blip, and maybe Keefe won’t be fast with the vaudeville hook. The Leafs signed these guys to big money, and they are delivering on their promise. But whether they can do it together — whether they should try — remains an open, inviting question.