Craig Berube shakes things up with new strategy involving Maple Leafs' star Mitch Marner
It was a much different scene on Wednesday for the Toronto Maple Leafs as head coach Craig Berube had Mitch Marner line up at center for the top powerplay line.
The Maple Leafs are doing a lot of experimenting this training camp already, with the notable shift of William Nylander to center, mainly to give head coach Craig Berube another weapon down the middle. Clearly something needs to shaken up with the Maple Leafs in order to change their fortunes when it comes to their journey to the Stanley Cup.
However, the experimentation seemed to reach peak levels on practice Wednesday as Maple Leafs winger Mitch Marner headed the first powerplay unit with Auston Matthews and William Nylander flanking him on the wings:
Berube is still going hard with the Core Four and Rielly manning the main unit, but the change to having Marner at center is an interesting one to say the least. He hasn't taken more than 25 faceoffs since 2017-2018 and for his career he is only at 45% for his career, not able to win even half of his faceoff attempts.
Last season he only won 25% of his faceoffs and the year prior, didn't win one in four attempts. It's not to say that Marner can't man the middle, it's a striking comparison to his linemates; Matthews has a career 52.8% faceoff percentage, meanwhile Nylander would feel a lot more comfortable given his career 50.4% rating. Berube is super high on Marner and clearly sees him as more than a scorer which is a huge boost mentally for Marner, who could be seen as more one-dimensional than his teammates.
It's understandable to see why Marner would get a look at center, as Berube isn't shy about his need for having as many tools as possible at his disposal. He wants Swiss Army Knives for players, capable of pulling multiple roles whether it be the powerplay, penalty kill, faceoffs, forechecking, you name it.
Maybe this will give him a better chance to learn how to win faceoffs, but with something as crucial as a powerplay, where every single second of man advantage counts, you can't risk any mistakes or discomfort from one of your stars because then you waste the opportunity.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are certainly pulling out all the stops before the regular season opens up in a week, and with the players as game as Berube is to try different things, a bit of tweaking with the original recipe could be the ingredient needed for the Maple Leafs to start cooking come playoff time.
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