The Maple Leafs need to reinvent their third line before the NHL Trade Deadline

One of the top teams in the NHL has to start looking at tinkering with its personnel if it wants to be considered a legitimate threat come the playoffs.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are currently sitting atop the Atlantic Division with 56 points, albeit the lowest point total among the four division leaders in the league. Yet, they sit above the reigning Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.

That said, there are still some notable holes the Maple Leafs need to address if they want to be a championship contender, especially in the bottom half of their lineup.

The third line has been a pretty consistent group over the past couple of weeks, as Max Domi has been playing alongside Bobby McMann and Nicholas Robertson. While the trio has shown flashes of being a helpful grouping on the ice, Toronto needs more depth experience in the bottom six, and they can add or change some of that with the trade deadline closing in.

On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk look at what the Maple Leafs can do to their third line before March 7.

Frank Seravalli: I think that’s the goal from Brad Treliving and his staff heading into this. It probably starts with getting a special third-line center that you feel like can provide some versatility and potentially some experience as well, that’d be a good fit. I mean, I don’t think the Leafs are immune, either, to changing out some wingers as well. That bottom six, I think, needs to be more competitive. That’s probably one big way to do it…push everyone down a notch and bring in some new pieces.

Assets, cap space, all those things will be hugely important. I don’t know exactly how much surgery the Leafs are going to do…take a bigger swing on a center and then maybe not be able to do as much on the wing, or do you tackle it all at once? It’s going to be an interesting proposition.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…