John Tavares and William Nylander will play on separate lines for the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup First Round against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday.
The forwards played on the same line for a good chunk of the season and were together for Game 4, a 7-3 loss at Amalie Arena on Sunday. The best-of-7 series is tied 2-2, and Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe is looking for ways to kick-start the play of each of them.
Alex Kerfoot will replace Nylander on the wing on the second line with Tavares and Ilya Mikheyev. Kerfoot played Game 4 on the top line with Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews, a spot Michael Bunting will slot into.
RELATED: [Complete Maple Leafs vs. Lightning series coverage]
Nylander drops to the third line with David Kampf and Pierre Engvall.
Tavares and Nylander each has two assists through the first four games in the series and each is minus-3. Tavares, however, has won 70.9 percent of his face-offs.
"He's been a pain in the [butt] in the circle for us," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said.
Neither team has won consecutive games in the series, Toronto taking Games 1 and 3 while the two-time defending Cup champions have won Games 2 and 4.
The Lightning took command of Game 4 early, scoring three times in the first 7:58.
"It's been a weird series in that one team plays well, the other team plays well, it keeps going back and forth," Lightning forward Alex Killorn said. "But we're looking to build off the momentum of last game and using that to kind of have the same kind of start we had last game."
Teams that win Game 5 when a series is tied 2-2 hold an all-time series record of 219-58 (.791), including a 6-0 record in the 2021 playoffs.
Here are 3 keys to Game 5:
