'We're Down': Why The Maple Leafs Ended The Steven Lorentz First-Line Experiment So Quickly In Loss To Stars

Heading into the game, a lot of the hyper surrounding the Toronto Maple Leafs game against the Dallas Stars centered around Steven Lorentz's promotion to the top line to play alongside superstars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. For a brief period of time, it looked like it was going well. Lorentz was on the ice when Marner found Matthews to connect for the game's first goal.

Unfortunately, for the Leafs, that would be all the offense they could muster in a 4-1 loss at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday.

By the second period, Lorentz was already off the top line as Dallas took the lead.

"We're down. You know, just moving guys around," Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube said of the switch after the game. "They went out and scored right away, and then I just trying to get some goals back as quickly as possible."

The line of Lorentz-Matthews-Marner played for a total of 6:18, according to NaturalStatTrick.com and had an expected-goals percentage of 47 percent. While below 50 is considered bad, it wasn't necessarily because of Lorentz as other combinations that featured Matthews, Marner, or both faired worse.

Related: ‘They Pay Good Money, They Want To See Us Win’: Maple Leafs React To Being Booed Off Home Ice After Third Consecutive Loss

"I mean, there wasn't a whole lot of flow in the game to begin with. But I thought, obviously, he started well," Matthews said of Lorentz. "Stevie, you know you're going to get out of him what to expect from him. He's going to work hard. He's going to be hard on pucks. He's an easy guy to play with. So, you know, sometimes the game, situationally just gives you different looks. And tonight we're trying to mix some things up and try to get some offense going, especially in the third."

By the end of the night, NaturalStatTrick.com tracked seven different line combinations as Toronto dropped their third consecutive game in regulation for the first time this season. The last change saw Matthews and Marner on different lines and it will be interesting to see if Berube sticks to this change when the club practices on Wednesday.

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