Lines in winter talk of T.O.

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This article was published 10/03/2011 (5638 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

TORONTO — A reporter suggested to Phil Kessel that only in Toronto could a change in the lines cause a stir. The Maple Leafs star winger flashed a grin.

“I know,” Kessel said in a world-weary tone.

If a change in the lines is the talk of the day around the Maple Leafs, though, it is only because the stakes are higher than they have been in a while.

The Maple Leafs are just four points out of the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, but something is amiss with the offence.

Sure, they have collected a rather average nine goals over the past three games, but only two of those have come from top-six forwards. And coach Ron Wilson was quick to criticize those players after the Maple Leafs’ 4-3 overtime loss to the Islanders on Tuesday.

So, Kessel swaps places with Clarke MacArthur for today’s game against Philadelphia. Kessel will play alongside Mikhail Grabovski and Nikolai Kulemin while MacArthur will play with Tyler Bozak and Joffrey Lupul.

“I’d love to set him up for the off-season shoulder surgery now,” MacArthur joked of Lupul, salivating at the opportunity to feed him one-timers.

In all seriousness, the change had better spark the Maple Leafs. The biggest concern comes on the power play. Toronto has not scored with the man advantage in any of the last five games, going 0-for-22.

That stands in contrast to the two games that came before that, when the Leafs tallied five goals in 11 tries.

“I have nothing against shooting early on the power play, but if you’re not tiring them out and you’re just shooting, they’re quick on the rebounds and they’re quick to pucks,” said MacArthur, who missed a few glorious chances against the Islanders.

“If you don’t have anybody in front, the shot is basically useless if you ask me. We need a better net presence and we need to slow things down a little bit and move it around. I feel the more we get the penalty killers moving, the more openings there will be.”

“It seems when we get on the power play we don’t play with as much grit and intensity as we do five-on-five,” Bozak added.

With that in mind, Wilson made the change. Sure, there is a mechanical issue to the problems, with the coach suggesting that the different groups will change up the passing angles. A lot of the struggles, however, can be traced to something as simple as late-season boredom.

“(I want to) force them to think a little bit instead of (them) throwing it into cruise control and they go out there in automatic mode and not be able to respond to whatever different wrinkles teams are throwing at us, penalty-killing wise,” Wilson said.

And if the line changes do not work, then there is always the bench.

On the back end, Brett Lebda fell out of favour on Tuesday. He played just more than eight minutes — while still managing to be a minus-2 — as youngsters Carl Gunnarson, Luke Schenn and Keith Aulie continue to be given more responsibility.

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“When someone’s struggling in a game, (benching him) is my responsibility,” Wilson said. “The player doesn’t want that to happen, but if bad things are happening on the ice, you’ve got to rely on the other guys on the bench.”

Presumably, that goes for the forwards, too. And there are a few struggling scorers who are in no hurry to find out if that is the case.

— Postmedia News