Craig Berube is shaking things up.
Craig Berube has changed all 4 lines and all 3 D pairs (in the wake of Chris Tanev’s injury):
McMann — Matthews — Nylander
Knies — Tavares — Maccelli
Joshua — Roy — Cowan
Lorentz — Domi — Järnkrok
McCabe — Carlo
(Rielly)* — Ekman-Larsson
Benoit — Myers
*Not practising
— Jonas Siegel (@jonassiegel) October 23, 2025
Most interesting is the decision to pair up the two best players on the team, Auston Matthews and William Nylander.
What might it do for the Leafs and the two stars in question?
1. Create one potentially great line
Berube’s desire to initially keep Nylander and Matthews apart was understandable as it would keep the Leafs more balanced, with high-powered threats on two lines instead of one.
What ended up happening, though? Two watered-down lines, neither one posing much sustained danger, with a rotating cast of wingers joining the foursome of Nylander, Matthews, John Tavares and Matthew Knies.
The top line, in particular, struggled to carry the play and spend time in the offensive zone.
It was the opposite, really.
Over 43 percent of Matthews’ even-strength minutes have been spent in the defensive zone. That’s up from less than 40 percent last season when Matthews had Mitch Marner on his right wing, and higher than league average (40 percent).
Conversely, Matthews’ time spent in the offensive zone has gone down from last season and also ranks below league average.
As much as they wanted someone else not named Nylander to work in Marner’s old spot, none had any real chance of lasting long term.
Matias Maccelli was a frequent healthy scratch for Utah in the second half last season and looked mostly overmatched in a top-line role, and understandably so. Max Domi has never been able to maintain top-six positioning during his time with the Leafs for a variety of reasons. Easton Cowan is a 20-year-old rookie leaping straight from junior.
The Leafs are losing Matthews’ minutes for the first time … ever.
It’s still TBD whether Matthews can recapture the “standard” of his earlier years when he was perennially in the MVP conversation and winning Rockets.
Clearly, it’s been a time of adjustment for him without Marner. The instability at right wing hasn’t helped. Last season, Matthews, Knies and Marner played the eighth-most minutes of any line in the NHL.
In Nylander, the Leafs have a legitimate top-line winger, one of the best wingers in the league, for that matter. Not playing him there when all the other options are clearly so ill-equipped for that kind of prominent duty made this a move that Berube had to make.
It seemed clear to me after only the second game of the season that this change was inevitable.
William Nylander and Auston Matthews haven’t played together regularly for a while now. (Dan Hamilton / Imagn Images)
What’s been evident in the early going is the decrease in puck control for the No. 1 line minus Marner.
Nylander might help with that.
“It’s a transporter, a puck transporter up the ice,” Berube said, referring to Nylander. “It’s a guy that hangs onto pucks in the offensive zone and moves and gets separation.”
The potential is there for one really great line, one line to carry the play and dominate the puck for the Leafs.
Nylander and Matthews haven’t played together regularly for a while now, since the 2022-23 season, when he and Marner spent almost equal time with Matthews that season.
The Leafs destroyed teams in those 500-ish minutes, outscoring them 38-14.
Bobby McMann, for now, takes Knies’ spot on left wing.
Berube is obviously hoping he can chase pucks, win board battles and crash the net alongside his starrier linemates.
Flipping Knies onto Tavares’ wing in his place is another attempt at maintaining some degree of balance — though I still figure Knies ends up back up top at some point.
Does this make the team too top-heavy? It might. Lots of teams have done this kind of thing, stacking one line in the hopes of dominance. The Edmonton Oilers routinely play Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl together.
It’s better to have one truly great line than two blah lines instead.
2. Nylander’s minutes should rise
Berube was already sneaking in extra shifts for Nylander, usually alongside Matthews. However, Nylander’s minutes have barely budged from last season.
This season: 19:45
Last season: 19:31
He ranks 44th among forwards in average ice time this season and logged only 18 minutes and 41 seconds on Tuesday night against New Jersey.
That doesn’t make a ton of sense when accounting for Marner’s removal from the picture and no equal replacement.
Nylander’s five-on-five minutes are almost identical to last season.
This season: 15:18
Last season: 14:57
Berube can boost that up a little now that he’s got Nylander rolling with Matthews full-time. He won’t have to work to find opportunities to get the two of them together throughout the game.
Nylander should be routinely playing over 20 minutes a night these days.
3. This could spark Matthews — and Nylander
It’s hard to pick at Nylander’s start offensively. He ranks amongst the league leaders in scoring, including at five-on-five.
However, he still has yet to score a five-on-five goal this season. He had 20-plus in each of the previous four seasons. More than that, he’s fired a mere six shots on goal during his 107 five-on-five minutes.
That needs to change.
Nylander won’t seek Matthews out like Marner did. He’ll operate more as a dual threat, someone who has to be taken seriously as a scorer but someone who can also make a high-end play for his teammates.
Nylander ranks ninth in Leafs history with 361 assists.
He has been the driver of much of the Leafs’ offence this season, just over half of it, actually. He already has 11 assists.
“Willy’s a great playmaker,” Berube said. “I think we underestimate the playmaking ability.”
Those efforts, and Nylander’s simple presence on the line, should benefit Matthews. He’s going to demand a lot more attention from opponents than any of Maccelli, Domi or Cowan, which means more room, potentially, for Matthews to operate.
Long a five-on-five goals inferno, Matthews has scored only once there early this season. In other words, the best goal scorers on the Leafs, and two of the best goal scorers in the league, have combined for one five-on-five so far.
Matthews has had opportunities to score, but it’s been very much a one-and-done kind of scene for his line so far.
This move needed to happen. The one thing Berube can’t do now? Abandon it in short order if sparks don’t fly right away. This is the right move for the long haul — until, that is, an upgrade is acquired from elsewhere.
— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, NHL EDGE and Evolving Hockey
