Leafs' forward lines juggled again after four-game slide

Not much is going well these days for the Toronto Maple Leafs, but that’s nothing that a shuffle of the forward lines can’t fix.

Toronto has now dropped four games in a row on the road over the past week, picking up just four points by way of a win and two OT losses over a five-game road trip to Winnipeg, Vegas, and three California markets.

But Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe is hitting the line blender in order to try to get his stagnant offence moving again, as Toronto’s 2.70 goals per game currently rank 27th league-wide.

William Nylander had previously been skating on Toronto’s third line along Denis Malgin
and Nick Robertson, but he’s back in the top six now on a line with Alex Kerfoot and John Tavares.

Meanwhile, the recently called-up Pontus Holmberg is slotting in on the Leafs’ third line, with Wayne Simmonds sent down to the Toronto Marlies.

“I am just going to focus on what I can do here. I have a job to do with the group,” Keefe told the media this weekend after Sunday’s loss to Anaheim. “Our group has responded in the past. I thought we were responding well today. If you look back to how we started last season, it was a pretty similar game in nature to this one. It is in overtime, we get the win, and it changes things for us.”

The Leafs were 4-4-1 and had a goal differential of -8 in October 2021, before finishing last season with a franchise-record 115 points.

“An overtime game can go either way, and if you get a win, it changes everything for you,” Keefe added. “We just have to continue to focus on the things we did well to give us a chance to win the game while continuing to get better at the things that are the reason we gave up the point.”

Here are the full forward lines, via Sports Illustrated‘s David Alter:

Leafs’ forward lines

• Michael Bunting – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
• Alex Kerfoot – John Tavares – William Nylander
• Pierre Engvall – Pontus Holmberg – Calle Jarnkrok
• Zach Aston-Reese – David Kampf – Denis Malgin
• Extra: Nick Robertson, Nicolas Aube-Kubel

Leafs’ defensive pairs

• TJ Brodie – Justin Holl
• Morgan Rielly – Victor Mete
• Mark Giordano – Rasmus Sandin
• Extra: Filip Kral – Timothy Liljegren
• Ilya Samsonov
• Erik Kallgren

The Leafs host the Flyers tomorrow night at Scotiabank Arena, with puck drop set for 7 pm ET.

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