Now, let's talk a little bit about if there are always going to be areas of concern, and a major area of concern last year was special teams, both sides of it. I'll start with the power play, guys. Jesse, I want to go to you on this one. We have the same lineup on power play one as we've had for three, four years. Not really a lot of personnel change.

Three, four assistant coaches managing that Powerplay.

What did you see in that unit?

Split it up. We've done this a million times. All of these good teams in the NHL are going to a new thing where they don't just load up the one power play unit. Unless you're Tampa, where you can just be Kuturov power play-Or Colorado. Or Colorado, where you don't really have the horses to do two units. I think it's a little different. I think Colorado, you can just throw out Kuturov out there. You know he's going to score on the power play. Either He's going to get an assist or he's going to get a goal. Toronto doesn't work like that. They struggle with loading up. So the best thing to do is to just try something different, and they refuse to do it time and time again. And we see other teams who, if the second unit comes out and they're also dangerous because they have somebody on there. Why not give somebody in this top unit their own second unit?

The second unit isn't the second power play unit. It's the don't screw up the line change unit. The first unit gets off the ice. Make sure you don't screw that up. All right, what do we got? Thirty-five seconds? Okay. We're not going to be able to do anything. When we're getting off the ice, we just need to make sure we don't screw that up to bring out the defensive guys. Okay, great. You're not dangerous.

You're not a threat. I understand the philosophy of you have everybody out there, so then when the second unit comes on, you're not handcuffed and you have to throw out your fourth line because everybody's out and those are the only guys you have left. You bring the big guns back on the bench. They get a little bit of rest. You can do whatever line combination you want coming back out. Justin Bourne talked a little about that when he talked about the William Neylander at Center thing. He wrote an article on that. I don't know if we're getting that if you have there, but I'd like to just talk two seconds about that after. Take it, go. But the power play thing, you can sacrifice your line change after the power play, whether you get the goal or not, because it'll generate goals. You're sacrificing the opportunity to have more bodies available, the big guns available, in the hopes that it generates more goals in the meantime. Isn't it better if you don't have access to Austin and Mitch because they scored?

Why not just mix things up and throw more people out there, and then hopefully they get a goal, and then you sacrifice the line changes that are going to follow.

But then you have a goal on the board, which is the point of the game is to score more than the other team.

And what if you had the depth to trust the people that are coming out after the power play as well? You load up that top unit, and I'm looking at Daily Face Off right now, and so they have the updated lines from last night. One thing that I think I'm struggling with something because Tavares is good down low, but is he good down low in front of the net? I think so. A lot of tip-in goals and that thing. So I don't think you take him off that. William Neylander could finish. Austin Matthews is the best finisher in the league at the moment. Mitch Marder is one of the best passers the Leaps have ever had. I look at, and I mentioned this last year with Klingberg, who was not the guy. I look at Morgan Reilly, who is a points phenomenon. I'm not taking away from Morgan's game. But one thing the least do not have on the first power play unit, if you're going to make a switch, to me, it's Morgan Reilly, because how many times have we seen Oliver Ackman-Larson already rip it? I like that player, man. For one of the first two games of the year, and I've been on this guy because I loved him in Florida, too.

I didn't love the Vancouver thing, but I think that was more contract and the team sucked. I think he would have told you that. Oliver Ackman-Larson, to me, makes a lot of sense on the first power play. If you're going to- Give it a look. Exactly. If you must keep all these guys together, and you don't have to. I thought Domi and Matthews were amazing together last year. I don't know why they haven't gone back to it yet, even in preseason. You mean 5 on 5? They were great 5 on 5. Yeah. Try them on power play together. But Oliver Ekman-Larson seems like the easiest, let's try that first guy, because he has run Some top power play units for bad teams. Imagine what he could do for a good team.

I guess I just don't... We did talk about this a couple of shows ago. I guess if you put Domi first-line, right wing, I just don't know what you do with the second-line then. So are you... Mitch isn't playing the left. He's never done that with the Lefs. Nylander has done it a bit. Do you do Nylander in the middle, Tavares on the left, and Nye stays with Matthews? Does Nye.

I don't see why if you can have Matthews win the face-off, I know you want to set Matthews up for one time or off the face off, so that might play into this.

Are you talking about the power play or five on power?

Power play. I'm talking about power play. That's why I'm saying put Oliver Ekman-Larson in for Morgan Reilly on the first power play unit.

Try that first. If you got to make one change, one, that's the one.

Then I look at, if you want to make another change, a guy I would sincerely look at is Max Domi. I think he and Matthews have something. Can you convince Max to get in front of the net and get nasty, pull Tavares on to the second power play unit. And then you still got Marner Matthews Nealander on one unit.

Or even like, here's how low the bar is. Start the second unit.

Well, and so there were people getting upset about the fact that the Leaps did play the second unit a lot more than they have in the past.

They were getting upset about that? Yeah.

Did you see the first unit? If you look at the aggregate of what the Leaps power play unit has done over the last few years, over the course of a season, there's no doubt that they're one of the best power play units in the league. However, let's look at it from mid-February to the end of whatever game they end in the playoff. It's annual gaslighting.

The power plate gaslights us every year. Oh, maybe this is the...

And they die. Well, because they also don't make any adjustments.

The trade deadline happens and they lose all their powers.

It's because it's something that's highly defensible. You can figure out what they're going to do. And so I I think power plays, especially with the leaves, have been far too much the same. Maybe they didn't feel like they had the horses on the second unit. I think they do now. I think there should be some fluidity with this. I agree. Remember we talked to Keith Acton in the spring when we were at the... We were at Boston Pizza, Stoville, and Keith was former assistant captain with the Leaps, and he said, You need to know about 20 games out from the playouts, which your lineup is going to be. And I get that.

That's such a good number that he threw out.

It's a quarter of the season.

But that's when they die.

That's when they disappear. So I think now, let's shake it up a little bit and see what happens. We're going to have to have several options. Did anybody predict last year that we were going to see Bertuzzi Domi Matthews? And yet, they were the top line going into the playoffs. And they were spectacular. And so why can't we try these things out? And I think they will. There's how many games? So many games. 82 of them. You got plenty of time to experiment. I also want to look at a guy like Matthew Nies, and it's going to come down to him earning it. But you saw what he did to Dougie Hamilton last night.

What a barbarian.

Does he not fit somewhere on the first unit as a big, scary body in front of the net or a guy digging in the corner? Just try it.

Just try it. Like, oh, you had 35 points last year. I still remember when people looked at me sideways and I'm like, why not try Hyman on the leaf power play? There was a time where that was a dumb idea. Yes. There literally was a time where there was barely a justifiable plan. Yes. And then, oh, he's starting to score. Okay, he's doing all right. And now he's one of the best goal scores in the.