Sheldon Keefe explains why he chose now as the appropriate time to reunite Nylander and Tavares

Leafs bench boss Sheldon Keefe announced several lineup changes ahead of Game 3 in Tampa after dropping a 5-3 decision at home to the Lightning on Wednesday. One of the noteworthy changes saw Keefe move William Nylander back up to captain John Tavares' wing, a spot where he played for the majority of this season, en route to a career year, notching 34 goals and 80 points in 81 games.

Nylander had found himself on the third line for the last few weeks of the regular season as a way for the Leafs to try to spread out the offense a bit and to shake things up once Tavares and Nylander began to stagnate a little bit towards the end of the year. On why he chose to reunite Tavares and Nylander for Game 3, here's what Keefe had to say.


Keefe loves his flexibility, but with the matchup games being what they are on the road, perhaps Keefe just felt like putting Nylander back with Tavares would give the Leafs a bit of a two-headed dragon, so to speak, with the Bolts likely putting their top shutdown guys up against Matthews and Marner, allowing the tandem of Tavares and Nylander (along with Ondrej Kase) to get a bit of a softer matchup by default.


Nylander has always been a strong possession player, and Tavares has always been very good at protecting the puck with his body and putting in the work along the boards and both behind of and in front of the net - areas where Nylander tends to avoid on a lot of occasions. Perhaps reuniting the two now will provide the Leafs with some better balance within the top six and weaponize John Tavares a little more again.