While his ten points in 33 games this season are nothing that will surprise you, eight of those ten points have been goals, and his excellent performances on the defensive side of the puck have made those limited offensive totals easy to forget. He has scored three times in his past five games, and yet Laughton logged just 9:28 of ice time (TOI) on Friday night against the Vegas Golden Knights. And this was one of the games where he scored.
His lack of usage in that game in particular was baffling, and even in the games where he’s closer to his average TOI of 14:39, he hasn’t been looked outside of the fourth line anywhere, even with William Nylander and Dakota Joshua out of the lineup. So, why? Why, especially in the context of the Maple Leafs’ three-game losing streak, isn’t Laughton getting a chance higher up in the lineup?
Head coach Craig Berube was asked Saturday about Laughton’s limited use in practice and said he was doing his best to run the top two lines more often in an effort to get back into the game.
“Well, he usually plays fourteen minutes a night,” Berube said. “Last night we were completely in the game. I started to catch up with two lines in that second period. That’s what happened there.”
In a vacuum, Berube’s reasoning makes sense. Every coach shortens his bench when you desperately need an attacking boost. But this raises another question: why is Laughton never considered for a promotion to the top six?
In recent weeks he has shown that he can not only score goals, but also at crucial moments. His breakaway goal against Vegas helped them get back into the game. He scored what should have been an insurance goal in their last meeting with the Golden Knights before the team lost the lead (and he wasn’t on the ice for a Vegas goal that followed his). And it’s not like playing in the top six is a foreign concept to him. He was often one of the Flyers’ top candidates to jump onto one of the top lines when he was in Philadelphia, scoring an impressive 18 goals in a season for them.
Sure, maybe it’s a bit of a questionable choice to promote him in favor of someone like Matthew Knies, but why are players like Bobby McMann, who has scored as many goals as Laughton in his last ten games, or Max Domi, who has scored two goals in his last fifteen? To Domi’s credit, he has recorded eight assists in that span, but their production alongside Auston Matthews has been far from consistent, or at least not consistent enough to protect them from any changes.
“It’s also simplicity. I mean, your D is tired,” Laughton said. “You don’t have to come back with the puck and make it harder. You chip in pucks, you fill lanes, you make it easy for your D, and you make it hard. That’s how you win this time of year, and that’s how you win in the playoffs.”
The Maple Leafs are currently five points behind the Boston Bruins for the second wild card spot, and they will face the league’s juggernaut in the Colorado Avalanche in their next chance to gain some ground. As time passes and the days go by with fewer and fewer opportunities to gain ground, the least the Leafs can do is give one of, if not their, biggest heart and soul man a good chance higher in the lineup. Or at the very least, don’t keep his ice time below double digits in a game he contributed to.
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