The Leafs this year have 7 or 8 rookies in the lineup on a nightly basis. For Babcock, a large part of it is finding players he can trust. Babcock is on record saying he doesn’t like starting rookies in the middle but with Matthews, he didn’t have much of a choice, so he’s paired him with (in his eyes) his most trustworthy player, Zach Hyman. For all his faults on the offensive end, Hyman is a reliable defensive presence and solid forechecker. The intended effect is probably to take some of the defensive pressure off of Matthews. Ditto with Brown, who replaced Nylander on that line after Matthews went into a scoring slump. In other words… Babcock is sheltering Matthews, and the offensive zone start % for that line supports that theory. Whether that’s justified, for a kid as talented at both ends of the ice as Matthews, is another matter entirely.
Incidently, Marner’s got the opposite problem: He has more offensive weapons to work with the offensive zone but needs to carry more of the defensive burden because of Bozak and JVR’s deficiencies in that regard. But he’s also a winger, not a centre, and he’s a year older than Matthews which may be why Babcock is more willing to shelter him less.
More than anybody, Nylander is the one getting the short stick (well, aside from poor Frankie Corrado, but that’s another story
). Babcock clearly doesn’t trust him defensively and may have felt his deficiencies were dragging down Matthews. So he was moved off that line in favour of Brown, a player Babcock did trust. First on the road, when lines couldn’t be matched, and now permanently. Problem is, aside from playing with Matthews, where else is he going to play? With JVR/Bozak seems like a bad idea as does playing him on a shutdown line alongside Kadri. Instead he ends up on the 4th line with Smith and Martin.
The right solution is probably to put Nylander back with Matthews and have Brown on the opposite wing, but for that to happen, Babs needs to be willing to unwrap some of the bubble wrap around Matthews.
