How Have the Toronto Maple Leafs Big Four Performed So Far?

William Nylander

After scoring 31 goals (on pace to beat Phil Kessel’s career high) and leading the NHL in net-front power-forward type goals, as well as posting MVP esque “advanced” stats, you would assume that Nylander would be hailed as a superstar on par with the Leafs other big three.

But you would be discounting how embarrassed the Toronto/NHL media is about being proven completely wrong in their analysis of this player.  Everyone on hockey TV, from Brian Burke to Darren Dreger, insisted, for years, that the Leafs couldn’t sign/keep/play four top forwards.

They suggested constantly that Nylander should be traded for a defenseman (usually a terrible one, and usually with no indication that they remember this).

They insisted that Nylander was soft, and all but demanded the Leafs to trade him.  They practically guaranteed that they would.

They didn’t.

And Nylander became about ten-times better than they ever thought possible. Rather than admit their error, they have just doubled down on it to the point of self-parody.

At one point this year, Nylander had a stellar game where he had two assists and on-ice stats that suggested he completely dominated the game.  No mention of this on TV though, just constant replays of Draisaitl blowing by him once, as if the absolute human tank that is Leon Draisaitl doesn’t blow through every single skilled winger he comes into contact with, at will.

Keep in mind that in this game, at 5v5, Nylander was hard matched to Draisaitl’s line and completely embarrassed them, not allowing them to get a single scoring chance.

Nope, better just to play the replay on a loop to try to reinforce the lame and incorrect idea that Nylander lacks effort or defensive acumen.  It was a low-class move and frankly, it should have embarrassed everyone working there that night.

William Nylander routinely puts up some of the best transition numbers in the NHL.  For years he’s been one of the single best scoring chance creators in the game.

The garbage, biased, conspiracy-level coverage of this player is really just ego driven non-sense from a bunch of old Hockey Men  who seem to have Nylander as an avatar for the advanced stats movement and their gradual decline into irrelevance.

They seem to think that Nylander – who puts up the stats of a superstar despite a weirdly consorted effort to pretend he doesn’t – must be constantly denigrated because if he is good then they were wrong  (about stats, about how to measure the game, how to watch the game, and how to build a team).

As recently as this week someone went on TV and said that a player who had eight points in nine games, while putting up the best stats profile on the team “desperately needed that goal” in a way that implied there was some kind of pressure on him to prove he’s a good player, despite routinely putting up similar or better 5v5 stats than a guy who makes four million dollars more than he does.

Nylander leads the Toronto Maple Leafs with a 55% expected goals rating, he has a 59% puck possession rating (bonkers).  The Leafs get 55% of the total shots when he’s on the ice (team leader) and 60% of the scoring chances.

He’s almost a point per game without being on the first power-play.  He is second on the team in 5v5 points with 4 despite playing almost 100% of his time with a guy who has a zero percent shooting percentage.

Marner has the point totals, but Nylander has been the Leafs best and most consistent player and is their MVP through the first nine games.