Craig Berube may be losing patience with William Nylander.

A preseason experiment from the Toronto Maple Leafs may quickly be coming to an end, although it may still be a bit too early to say that it is officially over.

As many of you reading this will already know, the Maple Leafs and newly appointed head coach Craig Berube have been deploying star forward William Nylander at the center position in the preseason, hoping to get some more flexibility in their lineup and more depth up the middle. Unfortunately on Monday morning we may have received the first signs that Berube is losing patience with the idea of having Nylander at center, as the lines he deployed to kick off the team's morning skate saw Nylander back on the wing.

First, let's look at the lines and defensive pairings that were deployed:

Knies-Matthews-Marner
McMann-Domi-Nylander
Pacioretty-Homberg-Robertson
Lorentz-Kampf-Reaves
Grebenkin-Cowan

Rielly-Tanev
OEL-McCabe
Benoit-Timmins
Rifai-Liljegren

Woll
Stolarz
Murray

As you can see veteran forward Max Domi is back at the second line center position, flanked by Bobby McMann who returned to practice on Monday and of course the aforementioned Nylander. Now this would appear to indicate that the experiment is over entirely, especially with the regular season just around the corner, but Berube was still giving Nylander a few looks at center according to Maple Leafs reporter David Alter.

I suspect that it may be Nylander's defensive acumen, or lack thereof, that has caused Berube to move away from the idea of Nylander playing a more significant role up the middle of the ice but only Berube himself truly knows the real motivations behind today's change.

Although the experiment is not officially over just yet, I do believe that Berube may be losing patience with the idea of playing Nylander at center.