Maple Leafs may be forced to change their top-six early

According to the TSN First Up program, the Toronto Maple Leafs need to make a swift change to their top-six before things stagnate for too long.

With the Maple Leafs already partaking in two games so far this season, they are even-steven with a 1-1-0 record. After a tough loss against Montreal on Tuesday, they bounced back against the New York Islanders with a 2-1 victory thanks to the heroics of Easton Cowan who had the eventual game-winner.

But it was Cowan and the third line that was actually the most impressive and showed the most heart, and while the top-six powerhouses had their chances, it was the bottom-six that set the scoring tone for the night.

Maple Leafs top-six may already need a drastic shift

It's early to panic but there is something to be said about how the top-six group hasn't exactly stunned anyone (outside of William Nylander) and there may be a change on the horizon. At least, that's what some analysts think.

TSN First Up's Carlo Colaiacovo and Aaron Korolnek discussed the woes the top-six are facing, and it all starts with the second line:

McKenna, Nylander, Tavares; not very good at all. Not very good at 5v5...I can absolutely see things shuffling around. They need production and they need consistency A.K. [Korolnek].

They need to be able to tread water, they can't get hemmed in. I am looking at shot attempts from these guys - three for them and 19 against. That's a 13% shot share and you wanna typically be in the mid-40's and hope your skill can balance it out.

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When you look at the numbers against New York it isn't pretty and you start to see why a change may be necessary for Jim Hiller.

The second line may be the most defensively broken line in hockey

While the Marchenko/Matthews/Roslovic line had six shots for and only two against, the actual shot total for the McKenna/Tavares/Nylander line was one shot for and 10 against - and a 7.1% xGF.

That first line for comparison had an 86.6% xGF rate against the Islanders, and the Cowan/Paul/Sissons line nearly had a 60% xGF as well. There's a clear outlier here and it's nothing to do with lines 1, 3, or 4.

You can't expect a team to sustain success if your second line is so defensively inept. Teams will exploit that to the nth degree and embarrass Toronto. Can you expect that group to shut down Connor McDavid or Leon Draisaitl? What about Mitch Marner and Jack Eichel? Or even Matthew and Brady Tkachuk?

No, and it's time for a real shift. Cowan has proven that he can be a puck hound offensively and is more than capable of defending. He's better than McKenna defensively, and the rookie needs a bt more protection in his own end - and he can exploit weaker matchups himself.

Give credit where credit is due. Nylander is showing a little more heart (though his egregious effort against New York says otherwise) and Tavares will never give up, but he's also an aging veteran who doesn't have a ton of time left especially as a 2C.

It's early enough in the season that Toronto can get away with changing things up, and they are going to have to if they want any chance of making sure they come away with a better result than last year.

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