Craig Berube Surprisingly Critical of Nylander, Tavares, Marner Line in Win Over Kraken
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Photo credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
Despite defeating the Seattle Kraken 3-1, Craig Berube was not overly impressed with his newly-formed second line of William Nylander, Mitch Marner and John Tavares.
After missing Monday's practice and Tuesday's game against the Calgary Flames, Mitch Marner returned to the ice on Thursday morning as part of a new, loaded second line with Nylander and Tavares.
The move came as a bit of a surprise to many, but Berube elected to keep Max Domi next to Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies in the hopes of spurring more offense from the 29-year-old, who hasn't scored since December 20th. Domi did register an assist on Thursday night and through two games, has looked much better on the wing of Matthews than center on the third line.
Although the Leafs won their third game in a row, Berube seemed somewhat underwhelmed with his $33M second line following the game.
"I thought they were fine, but they could've executed better in some situations where they normally would. They kind of mishandled pucks and didn't execute the pass at the time. There were opportunities for them to strike and get some opportunities, but I didn't think they executed well enough. In general, our team's execution with the puck was maybe off a little bit tonight."
While critical of those three in particular, Berube noted that the entire team had issues with executing plays and mishandling pucks.
As the Leafs head into Vancouver to take on the Canucks on Saturday in their final game before the 4 Nations break, whether or not that trio remains together at Saturday's morning skate will be something to keep an eye on.
| POLL | ||
FEVRIER 7 | 2303 ANSWERS Craig Berube Surprisingly Critical of Nylander, Tavares, Marner Line in Win Over Kraken Will the Marner-Tavares-Nylander line remain together for Saturday's game? | ||
| Yes | 1310 | 56.9 % |
| No | 649 | 28.2 % |
| At least to start, they only had one game together | 344 | 14.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
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