The question was, can the Leifs, with Bertuzzi Matthews' Domi working and McMahon, Tavaares, Neillander working, spread the love around over three lines? It looks like Sheldon wants to give that a shot, but it's not Marner that's moving.

Interesting. Who's moving? I mean, you would think... Well, okay, I was going to say Domi, but if they're spreading it around... Willy?

Willy. Willy is going to play with Nye's and Holmberg. What do we think? So it's Bertuzzi Matthews Domi, McMahon, Tavares Marner, Nye's, Humbert, Neylander, Duhre, Conf, Reeves.

Okay, hear me out. If that kid line is already bad at defense but has some good offensive upside, yeah, That is actually the logical thing to do. You have a fun top line. You have Holmberg, who's a pretty responsible, dynamic guy, lacks a little bit of a high end. You have Nye's, who can be a battering Ram. And then you got Willy, who's just give him the fuck. Just give Willy the fuck. And so I guess that leaves McMahon, Tavares, Marner? Yep. I don't hate that at all. I don't hate that at all. You know what? That makes a lot more sense. Willy is a good playmaker. Marner is the best on the team. So I like Marner with two dynamic goal scores in Tavares and McMahon. You know what?

That makes a lot of sense. Jesse, what do you think?

I think that's what I went with last episode. Was it not? I said, Why don't you pair Tavares with Marner? I think you did. I think you did. I don't know if you suggested Willy with Humbert.

No, I did not say that.

The question for me for this is, a lot of people have questions about Holmberg in that he's a little redundant in that you have two Holmbergs with David Koff when he's a settlement. I don't have strong opinions on Holmberg. Do you guys? Because I see a lot of fans being upset at him. It's going to be interesting to have him in this position with Nye and Willy, but I don't know.

That decision is fascinating. Okay, Yarn Croke is going to come back in the lineup, and for some reason, YouTube has decided, I need to watch the entirety of game 6 of the 2017 Stanley Cup final between the Preds and the Penguins. Every time a video ends, That auto plays for some reason. The opening face-off for, I think, every period is Yarn Croke versus Crosby, which means at one point in his career, Yarn Croke was taxed with being the shutdown center for Sydney Crosby.

And today, he's not even a center in this Leifs organization.

He's played four games at center his whole time here. To me, if they at least had a vague idea of what that would look like on this team would answer a lot of questions, but they're just not playing them there. I guess Holmberg is the casualty there, but then who plays at center?

It complicates things because Domi has been so good on that line with Matthews, but Domi should be your third center, but he's played himself into a higher position just on the wing. It's good to have options. Definitely. It's just Homenberg, by default, has to be your next center.

I would like Jern Croke when he comes back to play center.

You want him to try it?

I want him to try it. It's a little late in the season. Hopefully, it's like riding a bike.

I get the impression it's not. Is there a timeline for when he can return to his injury? They could have a couple of regular season games to try it out. I don't know. As opposed to like... Because at the play, obviously, you don't try Jern Croke at center.

There are some people suggesting right now that maybe the optimal Leaps lineup is Nealander at center?

Fuck off. No. Stop. It's over. Why is this?

What about Marner at center? What do you try him?

A huge mistake the Leaps made years and years ago is not getting Willy developed at center.

That's because Babs was like, Well, I can't trust him right now.

I can't trust him right now, and I'm trying to win every game. So fuck the long term health of this team. Willy still developed into an elite winger. He's an elite player. It's hard to look at a guy who's scoring like Willy is. He's going to get 100 points. Hopefully. And say you failed in his development, but he should have been a center. They developed him as a center with the Marlies. He came up with the Leifs. They put together this fun kid line, and it was great, but there was always the talk of, well, at some point, he's going to transition to center, and they never did it.

It'd be crazy if they tried it in preseason for a couple of weeks and really trained him on being a center. Then they went with it for a couple of weeks in the regular season and then see how that went. Then abandon it right away. They did that and it failed. We did this, guys. Earlier this season-When did we do it, Jesse? They did the proper thing of giving him a run in practice and fake games, and then they tried it, and it sucked.

They were drunk at the beginning of the season. Some of the stuff they tried. Oh, yeah. Camp between two dynamic offensive players. What? No. He's a black hole of offense. What are you doing? Unless you're scoring fourth-line type goals, which like he did the other night. No, I will forever begrudge the Nye's camp domey line as your third line. Oh, they're not getting depth scoring. Yeah, that line sucks, dude.

What are you doing? The point about the Willy Center thing is that they tried it, the, Hey, we're just going to throw this out there in the middle of the playoff's thing and see if that works. They tried that, it failed. They tried to doing it the proper way where you do it through preseason, you get them worked up, and then you do in the regular season, and that also failed. So this needs to be put to bed forever. It's over. In every instance, the proper way and the wrong way, it failed.

Man, Yarn Croke there would be nice. It would be nice. Marner as a center, makes a ton of sense.

But he's never done it. He's never done it. Not at the professional level. Yeah. Everybody growing up when you're the best player in your team, you're the center, right? I feel like- I'm sure he did with the nights.

I don't know that for sure.

I feel like he's never wanted to. It's never been a conversation.

Isn't he exactly the guy who should?

But he seems like he'd be great at the position.

Yeah, he has an incredible vision for the ice, and he's good defensively. He's not very big.

They've tried him at defense before they tried him at center. That is the thing that has happened in his career. He's played more defense than center. But I feel like Marner would be a great center, man. I I still don't know what they do.

I still have no idea what they do. If you do 11-7, you have to take two guys out. I still don't know.

It was funny to see. Did you see that they had dueling articles written by leaf reporters yesterday about this? No. Luke Fox did a, Ryan Reeve should be in the playoff lineup. He has to start, yeah. Then he did the playoff lineup. Then I forget who did the one for the athletic. I bet it was Jonas. I think it was Jonas. I had to admit. I'm sorry, Jonas. He did his, What's the ideal leaf playoff lineup? I was like, All right, we're all ramping dual playoff lineup articles. I'm going to read these.

I want to see Jonas and Luke in the boxing arena. I want to see them go at it or set them up on NHL24 with their optimal leaves lineup and have to play each other and see who wins.

Which lineup is better.

Which lineup wins. Just sim it, even if they can't play.

What did you guys think about Luke's, I guess, theory that Reeves has to be in the lineup?

I don't know how you keep them out. I think vibes matter, and I think we've ignored vibes for too long for numbers.

Running people the fuck It never matters. Drew's shaking his head.

Drew, what do you want to say?

What is it, Drew?

You don't put a defensive liability in your lineup. I don't care how many people he hits. Have you watched the leaves?

The whole team is a defensive liability. You're not pulling Reeves out of the lineup doesn't make them defensively a non-liability. There's no lockdown pair. Keef said to the media this year, We don't have a lockdown pair. You know why? Because they're blowing up the defense this off-season. Yeah.

Would you scratch Max Domi, too?

Yeah. That guy is hopeless.

Hopeless in his own end. I still love him. Yeah. Oh, my God, he's hopeless in his own end.

But I look at it and I think that as much as I respect the numbers, the numbers have got us to the playoffs in the past, and the numbers will still look good with Reeves in the lineup. Why? Because we have unbelievable talent on this team at the top end.

I've never seen a player as defensively hopeless as Max Domi, where I'm like, Give him 4 million bucks.

Yeah, and a huge extension. Do it. Keep him here forever.

But Steve, he sucks. Yeah, I know. Shut up. I know. It doesn't matter. Shut up.