Toronto Maple Leafs: A Full Understanding of the William Nylander Situation

The Toronto Maple Leafs continue to have success without Auston Matthews and William Nylander.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are now 5-3 without Auston Matthews (including the game he was injured in and played only seven minutes).  Of course, if we apply the logic that many Leafs fans have used on Nylander, that means they don’t need him.

So, to take it further, Nazem Kadri has five goals since Matthews went down.  Clearly he’s better with Matthews injured, so that’s reason number two why the Leafs should refuse to pay Matthews when his contract is up.

And, of course, these same people think that Mitch Marner deserves four million dollars per year more than Nylander, despite Nylander putting up better 5v5 stats (where about 90% of all games take place) so maybe the Leafs should keep Auston Matthews – at least for a little while.

Logxzic and Falze Comparisons

To me, it’s all so crazy, but it does remind you that the root word of the word ‘fanatic’ is ‘fan.’   And since we’re all just here to have fun anyways, I guess it’s not so important to have measured, intelligent takes on things that can be backed up with evidence.

I know that might sound sarcastic, but I mean it.  No one who isn’t making making a living writing about sports has any responsibility towards the truth – it is completely fine, even expected, for fans to have emotions and to let those emotions outweigh the evidence at every turn.

Remember, William Nylander is holding out for more money.  It’s not his collective bargained right – it’s a disgrace and he’s greedy.  He has no character and the Leafs are better off without him, as long as you remember to forget that the King of Character, Brendan Shanahan, sat out in a similar situation once, and another time he forced a trade by signing an offer sheet.  The Nerve!

Exactly! And when you’re insulted, like Leafs fans may feel they are being insulted by Nylander, the only thing to do is lash out.  He’s soft.  (Yeah, cause Mike Babcock play’s soft players on the top line all the time).  He’s terrible defensively (the Leafs literally always get more shots attempts, shots, scoring chances and goals when he’s on the ice).  And his numbers are inflated because he plays with Matthews (You mean the guy the team has a winning record without?)

The Main Thing we should take away from the Nylander situation is that he’s like totally the fifth or seventh most important player on the team (ignore the fact that he just missed the top-ten 5v5 scoring list, or that if you prorate his numbers to account for his lack of ice-time compared to other players of his skill level he’d have been a top ten scorer).

Oh and he’s No David Pastrnak. (Fancy Chart Alert!)

All you need to know about this comparison is that Nylander is less valuable because he plays with Matthews and has padded stats, while Pastrnak plays with Bergeron (better than Matthews for now) and Marchand (so much better than Hyman it’s not funny) but that that has no effect on Pastrnak’s numbers because it’s convenient to think that way.

Leon Draisaitl is actually a better comparison for Nylander, but he makes too much money so we’ve got to ignore that.

The main thing about the Nylander contract situation is that one way or the other, it will be over in three weeks.  My prediction: eight years, just over seven million per, and he goes on to be one of the best players in the history of this somewhat storied franchise.