I've supported Nylander forever but still to this day it seems like whenever Nylander has a strong game we lost the game or the leafs completely blew out the other team. I've yet to recall a tight game that leafs won because of Nylander. If trading him gets us back an equivalent asset on defense. I'm all for it.
The Leafs have been in 12 one goal games this year, and Nylander has scored 9 goals in those games. It took exactly 37 seconds to look it up. He scores in as many games they win as they lose.
This "anti-fact"/ "my belly tells me this" fake reality that permeates all of these Leafs message boards never ceases to entertain. I'm not a Leafs fan, but I would gladly trade your GM and the Leafs problems for my team's GM and ours.
What is true is that 30 other teams would make room for WN and his "bad" contract. Or all the other "bad" contracts that KD has stuck the Leafs with. A "bad" contract is not one where a guy gets $6.9 million to be in the top 20 or 40 in goal scoring. A bad contract is Louis Eriksson, Karl Alzner, Jay Beagle, Milan Lucic, Brent Seabrook, etc.
Even if it was true for 10 or 20 games, you don't trade Nylander because he scored in not-close games instead of close games. Especially when the team he is on does not play very many of those games, to be even more so with the new coach. The concept of "clutch" is pretty much synonymous with "luck". You could look up that in 37 seconds also. (Except for J. Williams in 3 playoff finals, "clutch" has never been replicated. Even Williams is only .02% PPG better for his career in the playoffs than the regular season)
And you don't trade a top 20 or 40 goal scorer to overcome injuries to your top 2 defensemen for 6 or 8 weeks. There is no "equivalent" defence man out there to trade for. None of the top 40 defensemen in the NHL are being traded. The mythic "equivalent D-man" is a unicorn. When a team forces the issue, it trades a top 20 goal scorer for Adam Larsson and the team sucks and the GM loses his job. Or it dumps the good forward contract and spends $5 or $6 million on an Alzner. (GM losing job on this one is pending.)
The more blow outs Nylander is contributing to, the less relevant is it to go find a defence stop gap to make the game scores closer . So be careful what you wish for.