Toronto Maple Leafs: William Nylander Gets a Bad Rap

Toronto Maple Leafs star forward, core piece, and possible future hall of fame player William Nylander is a training camp hold out.

Despite this being  a fairly standard practice, it has produced some pretty laughably bad takes.  The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to sign William Nylander – that is definite.  But that hasn’t stopped some people from turning on him.

One person told me yesterday that a player this young rocking the boat should be immediately jettisoned from the team.  I have to admit, this kind of take really gets under my skin.  I don’t care what Nylander’s age is, he has a skill that makes him among the top 40-100 people on this planet who can do what he can do.  So who cares if he’s young or old? If the boat needs rockin’ he needs to rock it.

I think we watch the NHL and actually forget how good these guys are.  There aren’t 100 people in the entire world who are as good at hockey as Nylander.

Since he has a rare skill set, plays a dangerous game that requires a ton of sacrifice and dedication, and since he is irreplaceable, and has only a limited time in which to make money, he should definitely take what he can get. (And if you think athletes make too much money, that’s fine, because relative to doctors, they do. But if they don’t get paid, that money just goes to a billionaire owner, not to fight poverty).

The idea that he should somehow be thankful that the Leafs want him and take some kind of a discount to play here is arrogance at its worst.  He has one chance to sign a contract like this, and unfortunately, his  union has set up a practice in which player like this have very little leverage.

Nylander, and all players who’ve earned the right to negotiate an NHL contract, has to get the best deal he can for himself. He doesn’t owe anyone anything, and while we are all fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, let’s not forget they are owned by two mega-corporations that are, by any standards, completely awful.

Let us now and forever always side with the players in any dispute over money.

Nylander

Now that he’s holding out, people are really roasting him.

One thing I heard recently, was that Nylander was some kind of soft European.  What is this? 1972?  Well, newsflash:  he is European, but if that’s your idea of an insult,  you should go back and watch Don Cherry re-runs and enjoy being the worst.

If you think he is soft, you are just flat-out, indisputably wrong.  You couldn’t score 60 points in the NHL if you were.  Not while putting up positive differentials across the board.  (And the idea that every player needs to be some kind of bruiser is as ridiculous as it is played out. Not every guy needs to crush in the corners.  There are multiple ways of being effective in the NHL and if you can’t see that, I can’t help you).

Trade Him?

Some people say Nylander should be traded for a defenseman.  This is a terrible idea.  You don’t trade elite players in the NHL.  It works almost zero percent of the time.

Taylor Hall, Tyler Seguin, Dougie Hamilton, Erik Karlsson, Joe Thornton, Seth Jones…….I could go on.  Name me the last time a team traded an elite player and received a comparable return which happened to work out great for both sides.

Besides, being just a bad idea in general, the most common name I hear is Matt Dumba. Matt Dumba is in reality the player Leafs fans think Jake Gardiner is.  Gardiner and Dumba both scored 50 points last year, but only Gardiner had good defensive stats.

I know a lot of people don’t watch other teams, so I’ll save you the trouble: If the Leafs actually had Matt Dumba, he would be despised in this city within two months.  He is Gardiner without the good defense.

Bad trade.

More Nylander

A lot of people try to cheapen Nylander’s accomplishments by saying ‘Yeah, but he plays with Matthews.’  OK, then tell me why Zach Hyman didn’t have 60 points in back-to-back years?

William Nylander was 24th last year in 5v5 scoring (5v5 scoring is far more repeatable, predictive, and less random than PP scoring. It’s also harder to do, and thus it is a more important analytic tool than total points).

24th might not seem that great, but he was four points out of the top ten.  Are Sidney Crosby’s or Connor McDavid’s wingers on this list? They are not.  And since they aren’t, we can’t credit Nylander’s success entirely to Matthews.

(While Nylander’s CF% drops when away from Matthews, Matthews CF% drops when away from Nylander, suggesting a complimentary relationship).

Given Nylander’s 5v5 scoring, and his unusual placement on the second power-play unit last year, his age, stats, teammates and situations, he easily projects into a potential top-ten scorer in the NHL.

Every single player in the top ten of scoring last year either makes over $8 million per year, or will eclipse it easily on their next contract.

Therefore, you can’t argue against Nyalnder’s agent asking to be paid like one of the best players in the world, when he clear is.

If not for Matthews, Nylander would easily be the best player the Leafs have drafted in years and years – maybe ever.  He is a potential 100 point player who himself is a franchise level player.

The Toronto Maple Leafs will obviously sign him soon.

To sum up:  he is an elite scorer, trading those never works out. He is elite with or without Auston Matthews.  He is not soft.  He is not bad at defense (and it wouldn’t matter if he was).  He is European, that is a fact, but you’re a bad person if you think that’s some kind of detriment.

There is nothing wrong with holding out.  William Nylander is going to be one of the best players to have ever played for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

That’s about it.

Info from capfriendly.com

stats from naturalstattrick.com