Editor In Leaf
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Toronto Maple Leafs Roundtable: William Nylander @ Centre

By James Tanner

Mar 20, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs forward William Nylander (29) shoots the puck against the Boston Bruins at the Air Canada Centre. Toronto defeated Boston 4-2. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 20, 2017; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Toronto Maple Leafs forward William Nylander (29) shoots the puck against the Boston Bruins at the Air Canada Centre. Toronto defeated Boston 4-2. Mandatory Credit: John E. Sokolowski-USA TODAY Sports /
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James Tanner:

Oh Hell yes he should.

With respect to what appears to be 100% of my peers, I am going to have to board the bus to reality and give you guys the actual truth:  William Nylander should be a full-time NHL centre.

Let us check off the objections one by one:

  1. He needs more experience.

Every year a whole bunch of rookies come into the NHL.  Many of these rookies are centres.  Few, if any, are as good as William Nylander.

Sure, he might need to ease into the role and it might take him a while before he’s a legit #1 NHL centreman, but he’s a special player and if the Maple Leafs put him at 3C in the first game of the season, how many other teams have a player like that on their third line?

Nylander is a franchise player.  If your franchise player is a centreman, you don’t convert his position just because you happen to have other good centres.

     2. He is not good at defense.

Again, not true.  Nylander is a 52% possession player who drove the possession for every  line he was one.  No matter who played with him, they got better.  (Stats.hockey.analysis).

Since the Leafs always get more shots when he’s on the ice than they allow, the argument that he is not good at defense is absurd.

Besides, what does it matter?  Tyler Bozak is terrible at defense.  Despite facing the easiest competition among the team’s centres, Bozak allowed the most shots against per 60 than any other C on the team.

Nylander is better than Bozak in every way.  Bozak is terrible at defense and does not drive possession.  Nylander isn’t and does. This is a no-brainer if there ever was one.

Faceoffs?  Please.  Let’s think about this:  Bozak is the 7th best in the NHL at draws (according to Andrew, above) and yet no centre on the team allows more shots against.  Even though, when on the road, teams send their best players out against Matthews, and at home Babcock puts Kadri on the other team’s best players.

OK, so Bozak is the best at faceoffs, but he gets the least points and has the worst defensive stats on the team.  How does this help?

      3.  Auston Matthew’s Chemistry

Yes, the two of them were amazing together.  But Nylander makes everyone he skates with better.  Matthews didn’t last year, but it’s a good bet that he will.  (WOWY charts @stats.hockey.analysis).

Playing two franchise-level players together, when each of them will otherwise elevate two winger’s games into their own sphere of greatness, just diminishes what you can get from each player.

It is better to have two really good lines than one amazing line.

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Yes, Matthews and Nylander have chemistry, but they are both pretty much guaranteed to have chemistry with anyone they play with because of how good they are.  Furthermore, the Leafs have extra wingers and a dearth of centres, so it just makes sense to make this move.

Add to that the fact that teams with 3 x #1 centres have a distinct match-up advantage they can exploit in every game.  It’s very hard to exploit matchups in a salary cap system and this would give the Leafs a massive advantage over most other teams.

Matthews-Nylander-Kadri gives the Toronto Maple Leafs the best 1-2-3 centre combo in the NHL, and I can’t believe people want to pass that up in favor of Tyler Bozak.

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