Maple Leafs' Keefe on why Nylander is key to team's new line experiment

Granted his first chance to see all of his forwards together, healthy, at the same this season, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe made some changes.

Much was made of Keefe’s new line combinations ahead of the team’s 4-3 shootout win over the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday. After rolling along recently with a top six that featured Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner together on the club’s top line with Michael Bunting, and John Tavares and William Nylander partnered on the second with Alex Kerfoot, Keefe decided to throw his forward combinations into the blender earlier this week.

Marner was moved to the second line, back alongside Tavares — a duo that’s produced some dominant performances in the past — alongside Ilya Mikheyev. Jumping up to the first line to replace Marner alongside Matthews and Bunting was Ondrej Kase.

Seemingly the biggest change brought on by the rearranging was dropping Nylander to the third line, the winger joining Kerfoot and David Kampf in the bottom six. While some among the Leafs faithful wondered if the latter move would signify a diminished role for Nylander — currently second on the team in goals and points – Wednesday’s win provided the answer, Nylander finishing the night with the third-highest ice-time among all Leafs forwards against the Ducks.

“I spoke with Will before making the changes, just to make sure he was clear about my purpose behind it, and my intentions with him — which were to spread out our scoring throughout, give other teams a little something extra to think about, and maintain the chemistry that he has with Alex Kerfoot,” Keefe said Thursday during an interview with Sportsnet 590 The FAN.

In fact, Keefe said, that chemistry between Nylander and Kerfoot was a driving factor in the decision to spread the club’s stars across three separate lines.

“I think those two guys combined, with Kerfoot playing in the middle in last season’s playoffs and down the stretch for last year — especially when John Tavares went out — I thought that Willy and Kerf, those guys combined to be our most productive line through the playoffs,” the coach said. “So, to be able to have that as a potential third group, outside of Matthews and Tavares, I was really intrigued by that, and have been really since the beginning, going into training camp, and haven’t been able to get a look at it.”

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His coaching staff got its first look Wednesday, and all seemed to check out, the Maple Leafs heavily outchancing the Ducks during 5-on-5 play, and winding up with a win for their efforts.

Aside from the chemistry with Kerfoot, Keefe pointed as well to another key opportunity created by the new lines — the chance to send Nylander over the boards in more situations.

“I really liked the ability to have Willy almost as a bit of a booster to any line, any particular time,” he told Sportsnet 590 The FAN. “Just throw him out there or change his linemate or change his centre at any time, and just change the whole complexion of the lines at any point in the game, whether it’s an icing and the other team can’t counter, or at home with last change.

“It just gives us an advantage that way. And that’s what I really liked about it, was kind of the booster shifts that came out of the lineups. And because it’s spread out over three lines, your top guys are rested more frequently, and you’re able to get one or two of them out at any point in time.”

With the win in tow, the Maple Leafs moved to 26-10-3 on the season. They’ll get another chance to assess their new line combos on Saturday when the team takes on the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena.

Listen to Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe’s full interview with Sportsnet 590 The FAN via the audio player embedded in this post.

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