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2025-26 Toronto Maple Leafs General Discussion

I'd love to see Laughton moved up to the checking line with Roy. Gives him a bigger role on the team. He's good defensively. He can be a bit of a pest at times which can work well against certain players. The other benefit is that it would allow him and Roy, both of who typically hover a little below 50% on faceoffs, to exclusively take draws on their strong sides which should boost those numbers over 50. I just don't really see who comes out of the top-9 forwards to make room for that. It feels like he's a backup if any of Domi, Joshua, McMann, or Maccelli struggle enough to lose their spots.
 
CarltonTheBear said:
I'd love to see Laughton moved up to the checking line with Roy. Gives him a bigger role on the team. He's good defensively. He can be a bit of a pest at times which can work well against certain players. The other benefit is that it would allow him and Roy, both of who typically hover a little below 50% on faceoffs, to exclusively take draws on their strong sides which should boost those numbers over 50. I just don't really see who comes out of the top-9 forwards to make room for that. It feels like he's a backup if any of Domi, Joshua, McMann, or Maccelli struggle enough to lose their spots.
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What a swing of events. From a team who's bottom 6 is viewed as being weak, to a team that can't find a spot for a player like (a hopefully rebounded) Scott Laughton.
 
princedpw said:
I feel like this group of forwards seems likely when the regular season rolls around (I’m assuming Cowan is waivers-exempt and no matter how he plays, will get sent down and then brought up when injuries hit).

Knies - Matthews - Domi
McMann - Tavares - W. Nylander
Maccelli - Roy - Joshua
Lorentz - Laughton - Robertson
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I hope Robertson sticks somewhere and/or the team finds its way to 3 scoring lines. Not much upside in the end of the core 4, though, if I’m being honest, there’s not much to be excited by here and I figure it’ll be a two-year process.

Still, I’d try

Knies - Matthews - Maccelli = seems to be worth trying
McMann - Tavares - W. Nylander = looked good for a stretch last season
Robertson - Roy - Domi = sheltered scoring line, maybe flip Roy and Laughton
Lorentz - Laughton - Joshua = checking line
 
OldTimeHockey said:
While I agree with all of this, I don't know that you're getting the value out of Laughton that you're hoping for with him on the 4th line. Other than the 900k savings, i'm not 100% sure what the benefit is.
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Roy got a bunch of 4th line duty with Vegas (though wound up with 15 mins/game ..)
It is so early. It is like the cake isn't baked but they haven't figured out the recipe yet.

They're playing around with Cowan right now - trying him in places - but he makes a perfect, waivers exempt callup

With Benoit banged up and trying to adjust to the right side, Myers value might have gone up ...

Jarnkrok, Kampf, Robertson, Cowan, maybe Thrun & probably Myers are on the bubble, etc -maybe others like Laughton.
Maybe, to help scoring, using perceived depth, they'll try a 3A and 3B line ...

So many possibilities. I don't think that is a bad thing. There's healthy competition. I just can't get too worked up about it yet.
 
Replacing scoring is exactly why I don't understand any of the talk of moving on from Robertson at this point. I get that he might not make sense come playoff time but you have to get there first and if the decision comes down to Cowan or Robertson for a roster spot, I'd rather keep Robertson and season Cowan in the AHL.
Aside from Domi/Macceli with Matthews I think the top 6 is fairly set. It's the bottom 6 lines that are going to be a bit of a mishmash until we find something that really works. I like that we have those options. I think we have good bottom 6 depth this year but I also don't think very many of these players outside of Roy and Joshua should be feeling like they are guaranteed to been the lineup every night based on their play last year.
 
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