Maple Leafs News & Rumours: Matthews, Roslovic, Nylander & McKenna

The Toronto Maple Leafs lineup-building has a certain logic, and it’s easy to see. Familiarity matters. Players know where they’re supposed to be; they know who they’re playing with, and coaches don’t have to spend the first month of the season reinventing the wheel.

Still, there’s a fine line between familiarity and simply doing what you’ve always done. The Maple Leafs appear to be leaning pretty heavily toward familiarity, particularly with their top six. At the same time, the defence looks a little more balanced and a little less complicated. So the bigger question heading into the season is whether Toronto is giving its forward combinations enough room to grow, or simply defaulting to what it already knows.

The Maple Leafs’ Top Six Looks Familiar, But Is That a Good Thing?

I understand why the Maple Leafs have built their top six the way they have. Auston Matthews and Jack Roslovic have some history, and Matthew Knies has played with Matthews for several seasons. John Tavares and William Nylander know each other extremely well, and the Maple Leafs obviously want to give Gavin McKenna talented linemates without putting him on the top line.

Roslovic is talented, but this will be his sixth NHL team before he turns 30. There’s a reason. He’s always shown flashes, and he’s also tended to start seasons well. Maybe that’s exactly what Toronto is counting on. If he gets rolling early, the Maple Leafs can leave things alone. If he doesn’t, they have options.

The bigger concern is that the Tavares line could be awfully good with the puck but not necessarily without it. This top six has a lot of skill. Nick Paul and Easton Cowan aren’t exactly Wendel Clark and Gary Roberts, but at least they bring some bite, physicality, and a willingness to make life uncomfortable.

Personally, I’d rather see a little more of Easton Cowan in the top-six. But perhaps that will come later if injuries happen. Right now, the rationale for the top six seems logical. And fans have to hope the team starts on a roll. If so, that gives the team options later if they need to make changes.

Maybe Matthews and Nylander Deserve Another Chance Together

This is the combination I keep coming back to. The Maple Leafs seem to be one of the few teams that actively avoid pairing their best centre with their best winger, and I’m still not sure why. When Mike Babcock coached the Maple Leafs, he resisted pairing Matthews and Mitch Marner. But now in Edmonton, so far it’s Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the same line. Did he learn something, or just different players?

Matthews and Nylander aren’t necessarily the classic goal-scorer/playmaker combination. They don’t need to be. They can both score, both can make plays, and, perhaps most importantly, they are a natural lefty-righty combination. They also have seasons of experience playing together.

During the three seasons Jim Hiller spent with the Maple Leafs, the two outscored opponents 76-47 at five-on-five when they played together, controlling nearly 62 percent of the goals scored during those minutes. Only Zach Hyman spent more time alongside Matthews during that stretch.

And here’s the funny part. Whenever the Leafs are desperate, they seem to pair Matthews and Nylander, and everybody expects them to suddenly dominate. Then, if it doesn’t happen immediately, they get separated again. Maybe that’s the problem.

If Toronto really believes the two can be an effective combination, I’d leave them together for a while. Give them a real runway. Keep them together for the first 20 games of the season and see what happens. If Matthews is skating the way he did in his first preseason game, it might be worth seeing what those two can do with time to build chemistry.

What’s Next for the Maple Leafs?

The interesting thing about these lineups is that Toronto hasn’t done anything particularly radical. They are going with combinations that make sense on paper, players who know each other and a defence that looks reasonably balanced. That’s probably a perfectly sensible way to begin a season. But sensible isn’t necessarily the same thing as optimal.

The Matthews-Nylander question is the one I’d be watching most closely. If the team really wants to give this group a fresh look, eventually they may have to move away from the comfortable answers and find out what happens when their best players are actually allowed to grow together. Sometimes chemistry isn’t something you find on a depth chart. Sometimes you have to give it a chance to develop.

That’s probably the bigger challenge for the Maple Leafs this season. They have changed enough of the roster that there should be some room for new combinations, new responsibilities and maybe even a few surprises. The temptation will be to settle quickly on what looks safe. But if this team is really trying to build something different, it might be worth giving some of those less familiar possibilities a little time.