Toronto Maple Leafs Return to Normal: William Nylander Has Spectacular February

The Toronto Maple Leafs William Nylander sat out for the first three months of the season.

When the Toronto Maple Leafs got back one of their three franchise player building blocks, he struggled to keep up and struggled for a few weeks. When his play turned around, he was snake bitten by a shooting percentage that was absurdly low.

But in February, William Nylander silenced his critics by turning in a month of solid hockey where he reclaimed his status as one of the best players on the Leafs. The critics have been silenced and everyone now realizes that the Leafs have signed him to what will turn out to be a very team-friendly contract.

Oh what’s that? The critics have doubled down, and the people who were shouting for stats nerds to “watch the game,” when Nylander’s raw totals were being suppressed by a low on-ice shooting percentage should take their own advice?

Because if you’ve watched any Leafs game for the last month, your opinion of Nylander must surely have changed for the better. Not only is he taking over games, and not only has he been consistently among the best players on the ice, but he’s transitioned smoothly to centre with Kadri out, giving the Leafs potentially the deepest group of centres ever assembled.

Nylander in February

During February’s 15 games, Nylander averaged 12.38 minutes of ice time per game, about two less than Tavares and Matthews get. During this time, he led the Leafs with a 57% possession rating, and scored 5 even strength points, and nine in total.

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The five points at 5v5 were only two less than Marner, who plays a ton more and who regularly skates with John Tavares. Nylander’s most common linemates since Kadri has gone down are Patrick Marleau and Connor Brown, two players who are fourth-liners at this point. (All stats from naturalstattrick.com).

Essentially flying solo, Nylander has given the Leafs one of the best third lines in the NHL.

Overall, the three most common linemates for Nylander on the season are Kadri, Marleau and Brown and all three have a shooting percentage under 7 when paired with Nylander. This is just bad luck, but it goes a long way in showing why Nylander doesn’t have more points.

I think it’s very important to make clear that for the season on the whole, Nyalnder has not been properly rewarded for his strong play on the score sheet. This is a combo of bad luck and less than ideal linemates, but it’s clouded his performance for a section of the fan base that are angry he held out.

In the month of February, Marner scored at a rate of 2.65 p/60 while Nylander scored at a rate of 2.35 points per 60. That works out to about one point per 180 minutes, which is roughly how much Nylander played in February.

That means that, on a per minute basis, with Mitch Marner playing with John Tavares, and William Nylander playing with Connor Brown, Nylander provided essentially the same amount of offense as Marner did, while playing centre, and better defense.

This isn’t to disparage Marner, who is one of my favorite Leafs players in the history of the team. It’s to point out how ridiculous it is that people won’t acknowledge how great Nylander is playing.

Considering the differences in linemates, what we see is Nylander scoring at a 1st line rate while playing the best defense on the team (since he leads in possession and the other team can not score when they don’t have the puck), At this point, people hating on Nylander are simply afraid to admit that they were wrong about him. Statistically or visually, he’s been one of the Leafs best players for a while now.

Next. Three or Four Hard Truths for Leafs Fans. dark

The most important thing is this, however: In mid season, he took over for a player that everyone pretty much agrees is the best third line centre in the NHL and outperformed him.

William Nylander has been one of the best players on the Leafs for at least the last month.

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