Toronto Maple Leafs' three-superstar line has case as NHL's best
There are a few things you learn when watching the Toronto Maple Leafs over the years: never believe that they’ve actually figured it all out.
But first-year Leafs coach Craig Berube might have unlocked a secret sauce that his predecessors, Sheldon Keefe and Mike Babcock, never quite tested.
On Wednesday night, Berube decided to slot Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander together to start the contest, a rarity in the three stars’ careers. They played just 40 minutes together last season and 30 minutes two years ago at 5v5. Most of the time, they find themselves suiting up either in a late-game desperate attempt or merely in the midst of line changes.
Last night, Toronto won the game 5-3 over the Dallas Stars, but perhaps the long-term potential of the line is actually a much more intriguing possibility.
Looking at MoneyPuck.com’s lines tool, the early returns from the line are staggering, albeit in an extremely small sample size. Having played 31 minutes together this year at 5v5 play, including the win over Dallas, they’ve managed to put together arguably the league’s most impressive offensive display of any three-player trio this season.
The Matthews-Marner-Nylander group generates 107.63 shot attempts per 60 minutes of ice time, more than 20 full shot attempts per 60 minutes higher than all but three lines in the NHL and 16.3 shot attempts per 60 minutes higher than the second closest line. Their Corsi For% ranks second league-wide behind a defence-first unit in Edmonton’s Corey Perry, Derek Ryan, and Vasiliy Podkolzin.
In other words, the Leafs’ three biggest stars are generating a whole lot of chances whenever they all end up on the ice together.
The “pump-your-brakes” response is pretty easy: they’ve only actually scored one goal together while allowing three goals against while on the ice together, including two last night.
“For me, they were off a little bit tonight, like a lot of our guys were. I didn’t think they had their best game,” Berube said on Wednesday.
Nylander thought there were growing pains in the trio’s first full game together.
“Yeah. It started not so good. It started the second period not so good, but that happens,” Nylander said. “Just find each other out there. I thought we had some really good chances as well. But we’ve got to tighten up some stuff a little out there.”
But if the early underlying returns continue to trend strong, Berube seems to have found a combination for which he’ll be getting his money’s worth if they stick together.
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