It's the weekend, and this last game before the four-nations break pits the Leafs against 20 guys named Pettersson.

The Leafs had a practice yesterday, and the lines were the same as the game in Seattle:

I know people want to see Craig Berube take the roster, run it through arr.sort((a,b) => a-b); and then deal out the results so that everyone knows exactly where they sit on a hierarchical list.

This is not his job.

When it comes to Max Domi, who many people want to see demoted, it most certainly is not how he should be doing his job. I've called Domi the easiest to understand player, and he is. So to review: he is on his best day a null factor defensively, he plays a physical game, but shows no positive impact on shots against. He shows some mild positive impact on shots for, and last season with the Leafs, he had a huge impact on Goals For.

He shoots from poor locations (not unusual for a pass-first winger) and he can just barely play as a centre on the third line, adding no meaningful value nor being much of a detriment. His career points pace and individual shooting record is poor.

This season, he has been underperforming his own recent career norms and is often of less value than Nick Robertson. This is not okay. He makes real money, has term on his contract and trade protection, and he is not being traded. Berube's job is to find a way to get value out of Domi at least similar to last year's.

I don't measure value in points, but at this point, the Leafs would likely settle for some assists that will boost his confidence (before he starts more stupid fights) and possibly gets him on a late season run where he's better than the guy in the press box.

That's why, when Mitch Marner missed a game and Domi played well enough on the Matthews line, Berube kept that line together. I generally agree with Jeff O'Neill on this topic, that whenever Marner and Matthews are split up, it's a question of when will that stop. But Berube might drag his feet more than usual here.

It's good coaching to leave him on that top line heading into the break. It's bad coaching to make Domi into a culture war avatar. You get to do that if you like. Berube can't make him sit in a corner and wear a red hat.

There's lots to criticize this team for, Berube for, Treliving for, without getting mad they aren't doing the thing no one would ever do.

Now, do I have much hope that last year's performance from Domi is repeatable? Not really. But I'd rather he's playing as well as he can than whatever it is he's been doing lately. But he's not the only member of the team for whom that's true.

Thoughts on 32 Thoughts

32 Thoughts: The Podcast
Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman & Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.
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I listened to this yesterday, and I've been idly puzzling over it.

Elliotte Friedman did a bit on the Leafs and their search for a centre and said (paraphrased and condensed) that the Leafs have a list of centres that they might like and what it would cost to get them. And they are going over that list and considering how much they like someone and weighing the cost.

Are you saying, "well, duh." I was.

Friedman himself basically said this is how all teams likely should do this. And he belaboured this a bit and then didn't actually talk about any one player, and I was like... what the hell was that?

Facile answer: all media are dumb as rocks and he's dumb as a rock and yadda.

But I felt like he was circling around a thing he didn't want to say out loud. And all I've come up with is this stuff about Brayden Schenn or Dylan Cozens and how that's just not serious, and it's just part of the process of Treliving et al thinking through this stuff and doing bog standard market research.

Speaking of player moves:

Tis the season to overvalue depth defenders.

In other news:

Greatest Marlie ever?

That's it for now, and don't forget the game is on at annoy Vancouver time, not the middle of the night this time.

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