nylander at C might be interesting cuz after all, he did originally start as a C

my question is where does tavares play cuz there's no way that he will decline drastic enough to be sheltered on the 3rd line. my guess is that it makes sense that tavares plays on 1LW or 2LW in a similar fashion of stamkos switching from C to LW too

Oh, so why not put Rielly at LW1 and run a starting lineup of
Rielly-Woll-Sammy
Marner-Matthews
Keefe in the net
And Kampf as the coach
With JT as the GM

Yeah that may work, the only issue i see is he is not very defensively responsable but John is. his numbers are not bad for playing C over the last few seasons.

2017 - 51.4% - 650 faceoffs

2018 - 55.2% - 368 faceoffs

2019 - 50.0% - 212 faceoffs

2020 - 56.5% - 23 faceoffs

2021 - 52.3% - 65 faceoffs

2022 - 42.4% - 59 faceoffs

Nylander at C has been tried and failed numerous times throughout his career.

Interesting idea to spread out the offense - I don't see it as sheltering JT as much as it is making the offense less top heavy.

I'd even think about flipping Knies out of that LW1 spot - the last few years have shown you can put pretty much any warm body out there and get decent production next to Matthews & Marner, so maybe throw Holmberg or even Jarnkrok up there and see what you get? Then put Knies & Robertson on JT's wings and let them learn with him - you can still roll out all the big guns on the power play but I think this would make the Leafs more dangerous 5v5. Having three lines with big-time scoring threats means you *will* find a mismatch at some point, and then you can exploit it for all it's worth.

https://www.tsn.ca/nhl/maple-leafs-gm-treliving-matt-murray-requires-significant-surgery-muzzin-won-t-play-this-season-1.2010035

for anyone doubting this...