The Biggest Question Facing the Maple Leafs' Blue Line This Season

All the talk this season about the Maple Leafs' top-six group has gotten in the way of something that might be a bit more pertinent to their success.

Scoring is great, but when you are getting outscored four, five goals a night it can be tough.

Thankfully, things have started to turn the corner for the Maple Leafs on defense however there are still some questions about Morgan Rielly's performance, how Brandon Carlo would fit in with a full season, and what of Simon Benoit?

It's going to be tough for Craig Berube to handle things, and while he should have a good idea of where things lie, he might need to shake things up.

First and foremost, let's keep things together with Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev, ok? That pairing was a huge reason why Toronto turned the corner defensively, and it would be odd to break them up.

But giving Carlo a full season alongside Rielly should hopefully spark him again, and that'll be crucial for Toronto getting more offense out of their team with the loss of Mitch Marner.

Craig Berube also can't be shy about pulling players if they don't fit, and if we see Oliver Ekman-Larsson struggle and regress, then it might be Henry Thrun or Matt Benning's time; and Benoit needs to start being a more aware defender.

With Lane Lambert out of town, it relies on Derek Lalonde to help run things, and he'll need to ensure he balances physicality with as much puck-moving as possible.

This is the big one. Toronto's power play was great last year...for the forwards. Rielly was a shell of his former self and looked two steps behind when running anything on the power play.

As great as five forwards are, moving to a traditional system now relies on Rielly to be a force again, and with Carlo in tow it at least provides him with some stability.

But beyond that, it seems Toronto needs to make a move to bring in a better offensive player on the back end or if they can get the best out of Thrun; it might behoove them to give it a go if they struggle; he's young but has experience.

The penalty kill needs to remain the McCabe and Tanev show, with Carlo and Benoit as the PK2 unit, and leave Rielly far, far away from those duties. The majority of the weight will be on Tanev and McCabe when things get rough, but as they have proven, they can handle it.

It's less a worry that Toronto is going to kill penalties, but rather taking them and it's imperative for their backend to stay out of the sin bin (Benoit and Ekman-Larsson have some discipline issues at times) otherwise it adds even more pressure on a group that's already expected to be brick walls.

So it'll take a lot for Craig Berube to make his defense as good as possible, and there are certainly a lot of factors that play into it.

But if all works out? It could be the reason Toronto makes it back to the Conference Finals.