Maple Leafs: NHL’s Most Underrated Player (Probably) Back

The Toronto Maple Leafs have lost three in a row, but have done so without their third best player (not to mention various back-up goalies and no power-play).

After last night’s game was rescheduled following the Vancouver Canucks horrible Covid situation, the Leafs and Canucks will play what has to be one of the most unfair games in NHL history.

The Canucks – who are a good example of why it might not even be a good idea to try and play through this pandemic – haven’t played since March 24th, and given the reported horror of their recent experience, they most likely are not ready and would rather not be playing today.

They haven’t played for nearly a month, and would be in bad shape for an NHL game even if they weren’t off sick.  To welcome them back to the NHL they get a back-to-back with the NHL’s best team.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Vancouver

The Leafs will likely be welcoming back William Nylander tonight, and he’s easily the NHL’s most underrated player and a full fledged super-star despite the Toronto Media’s failed campaign to run him out of town over the last three years.  Nylander practiced but there’s a chance he takes another game to get up to speed.

Amazingly, there are still Leafs fans who haven’t fallen in love with the player who is fast becoming one of the all-time best players to ever wear the blue and white.

Nylander’s totals are a bit lower than they otherwise could be due to not playing on the team’s top power-play unit, and John Tavares season long 5v5 goal scoring slump. Still, 13 goals and 30 points in 39 games is impressive.

For context and perspective, Nylander’s 2.1 points per 60 (5v5) is solid first line production that ranks him 49th out of 320 NHL players who’ve played a minimum 500 minutes. Consider that out of those 320 players, Nylander’s on-ice shooting percentage ranks 202nd, and you can see how he’s been getting unlucky.

Further proof that his production isn’t representative of his overall excellent play can be seen by looking at a few more advanced numbers.  Nylander’s Corsi (aka puck possession) is 52.46% which is third on the Leafs behind Matthews and Thornton.

The Leafs have gotten 63% of the goals when Nylander has been on the ice this year and 57% of the expected goals. 54% of the scoring chances and 61% of the dangerous chances.  In most of these stats Nylander ranks behind Matthews and ahead of Marner. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).

It’s clear when looking into the numbers that Nylander has put up (including basic, non advanced numbers like “goals” and “assists”) that he is one of the best players in the NHL.  The only reason he is underrated is because he plays on a team with three other super-stars and the media didn’t like that Kyle Dubas kept him when they said he should have been traded, and so they proceeded to tear him down needlessly and in an objectively incorrect fashion.

Hopefully Nylander is back and good to go as the Toronto Maple Leafs gear up for the stretch run.