William Nylander is a polarizing figure for Toronto Maple Leafs fans.
Bring up his name in a group of Toronto Maple Leafs fans and you’re sure to hear he’s one of the Leafs best and the absolute worst from at least a couple of people.
He has played some real good hockey. One thing that may surprise those that dislike Nylander is that he is tied for 2nd fewest giveaways in the entire NHL.
People used to cite bad giveaways as their reasoning for Jake Gardiner being a bad defenceman, so would that mean giving the puck away than every single NHLer except for one mean your good at defense?
Or at least a good forward at making sure your team has the puck?
Toronto Maple Leafs and William Nylander
One thing that is undeniable is that Nylander is heating up.
When Nylander heats up, every player on his lines play is elevated. That is a very good thing when you have Auston Matthews on your line. Marner looks to be out for 4 weeks minimum.
This is a huge blow to the team. But with Marner out somebody has to step up on the powerplay, and so far, Nylander has shown he is up to that. We already knew Nylander could produce at 5v5, only Auston Matthews has more 5v5 points than Nylander.
But he hasn’t been given much opportunity to produce on the powerplay being glued to the 2nd power play unit with players who can’t really pass or shoot very well.
If Nylander can keep up his level of play on the power play as well as he has at 5v5, when Marner comes back, Babcock may be forced to pull Johnsson off of PP1 and run Matthews, Marner, Tavares, Nylander Rielly on PP1. That is a scary powerplay.
Now we all know how much of a threat Auston Matthews is to have on a line, he can have an off game an still score 2 goals.
Auston Matthews is at his best when William Nylander is at his best, both can pass, both can shoot. What I find works so well with these 2 is Nylander’s ability to hold on to the puck and cycle round until he can find Matthews in a good position, or take a shot of his own. But when Nylander is at his best, it doesn’t matter which has the puck, one of them is going to score.
Nylander has a wicked shot which he has had some trouble getting into the back of the net. Some people say he has trouble hitting the net but he misses the net as much as just about any other player. It appears he has his confidence back with 3 out of his last 4 games being multi-point games. Here is a link to a hat trick he had against a very good team.
That Nylander is back and better than ever.
With Marner out, this is the Nylander we want and the Nylander we need. You can say you want to trade Matthews preferred linemate all you want. The fact of the matter is this team is a lot more dangerous with him on it, especially with the level of play he has reached this season.