Have we seen the best of W Nylander?

Have we seen the best of Willy?

  • No, he's going to improve

  • Yes, but he'll remain at that level for many years

  • Yes, he's going to continue to regress


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Nithoniniel

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Sep 7, 2012
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This season has been weird for him. He was so far behind in the first while that it wasn't even funny, then he started to play better but nothing went in. After that he's had a longer stint at center flanked by Marleau and Brown, a duo that manages to kill even Matthews' numbers. Add that he gets no time on the top PP unit, and our second PP unit is abysmal, he basically produces only at even strength too. Now that he's been back with Matthews, he's been almost PPG.

I'm a big believer in Context Matter. Put a player with offensively challenged linemates, cut his ice time, keep him off the good PP units, and you'll see his numbers suffer. Willy has had very good even strength production for several seasons now. He had the highest (either P/60 or P1/60, don't remember) in the league on the PP in his first season. That's the only time he's been on an effective unit, so he should be able to produce well there too. With that in mind, it would surprise me if he wouldn't be around PPG if he had played a full season on the Matthews line and first PP. However, that won't happen as Marner occupies his spot. That's more a question of how much we get out of him rather than how good he is though.

The flaw isn't in his shot, it's his shot selection and offensive positioning. I haven't seen many offensively gifted players have so bad shot selection. I'm sure that if you gave him a breakaway on an empty net, he'd curl towards one of the faceoff circles and try to snipe it top corner. He's never going to be a great goalscorer unless he can improve on that.
 

Martin Skoula

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Oct 18, 2017
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That’s pretty great tbh. Here is another great shooter doing some magic.



Are you going to try to make a point here? Thornton has a good shot just like Nylander, he just chooses not to shoot often. Go check out their SOG stats, Nylander doubles Joe's recent season averages.

His shot selection is off but that's not unreasonable for a natural C/LW being forced to play RW for some reason.
 

Nithoniniel

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Sep 7, 2012
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Not sure what site you're using, but naturalstatrick has him at 2nd in SCF for the past month, but he drops all the way down to 30th in HDCF, which kind of mirrors what I said. He can create, but his "dirty area" creation needs work.
The numbers I've seen comes from The Point, where he was third league-wide in individual scoring chances from the slot.
 
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Phil McKraken

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Jul 13, 2010
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Playing for the Leafs will likely hamper his point production for the rest of his career. He's not good enough to take a #1 PP spot over Matthews, Marner or Tavares, but he's also too good to just stand in front of the net, so he'll probably always be tasked with running the second unit. There's more to a player than just points but his future stats would probably benefit if he was traded to a team with worse forwards.
 
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hamzarocks

Registered User
Jul 22, 2012
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Pickering, Ontario
This season has been weird for him. He was so far behind in the first while that it wasn't even funny, then he started to play better but nothing went in. After that he's had a longer stint at center flanked by Marleau and Brown, a duo that manages to kill even Matthews' numbers. Add that he gets no time on the top PP unit, and our second PP unit is abysmal, he basically produces only at even strength too. Now that he's been back with Matthews, he's been almost PPG.

I'm a big believer in Context Matter. Put a player with offensively challenged linemates, cut his ice time, keep him off the good PP units, and you'll see his numbers suffer. Willy has had very good even strength production for several seasons now. He had the highest (either P/60 or P1/60, don't remember) in the league on the PP in his first season. That's the only time he's been on an effective unit, so he should be able to produce well there too. With that in mind, it would surprise me if he wouldn't be around PPG if he had played a full season on the Matthews line and first PP. However, that won't happen as Marner occupies his spot. That's more a question of how much we get out of him rather than how good he is though.


The flaw isn't in his shot, it's his shot selection and offensive positioning. I haven't seen many offensively gifted players have so bad shot selection. I'm sure that if you gave him a breakaway on an empty net, he'd curl towards one of the faceoff circles and try to snipe it top corner. He's never going to be a great goalscorer unless he can improve on that.
Agree with most of what you said but 100% agree with your last part about nylanders shot selection. Never seen a player aim pucks like him. It's something he needs to improve. He ends up quite often with the puck in the high slot and other dangerous areas. He just always goes high and often wide. Nylander in terms of raw power makes marners shot look like a joke. Marner can get nice goals becuase he can beat goalies with his accuracy. Nylander as a play maker will be 45-50 assists.

He needs to work his ass off on just shooting the puck and trying to beat goalies in multiple ways. He has 30 goal potential. Voted option three by mistake but think he ends up a 75-80 point player as soon as next year. Nylander will need to put in the effort this offseason as he needs to work twice as hard for this season which hindered his development. Have confidence in the guy and think he makes a lot of people look foolish ( including me when I was severely disapointed in his play early in the year)
 
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ScaredStreit

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May 5, 2006
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I think he'll be about a 60 point player and there's nothing wrong with that. It's management's fault that his hit is going to make it tough to sign Marner and more players later on-not his.
 

The Moose is Loose

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Jun 28, 2017
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I mean he is from the same draft as Draisaitl, but every leaf fan is confident how he is done growing as a player at 23 years old.

In all seriousness, I think it's a safe bet to guess that he'll improve from here.
 

LeafingTheWay

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May 31, 2014
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Side note - Toronto was 20-8-0 before Nylander, but have won only half of the 50 games they've played since Nylander joined the lineup. I'm not for sure saying Nylander is at fault for that as I don't catch every leaf game, but for a team as talented as Toronto that's quite awful.

Don't know what the point of this statement was.

It's quite well known that the Leafs had a highly unsustainable PDO at the start of the season and were regressing to normal as the season progressed. Marner's 170 point pace, Rielly's 130 point pace, Tavares 75 goal pace all went down.

If anyone's to blame for the Leafs not continuing to dominate, it's on those guys for not living up to fan's unrealistic expectations they'd keep that up :laugh:
 

Bounces R Way

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Nov 18, 2013
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Tough to say. I think he has the talent to improve. My question would be: why would he bother? His GM just gave him 45 million dollars after a couple 61pt seasons. That contract will expire and he'll be a UFA, almost guaranteed another big payday even if what he's shown so far is his level. Getting better is hard work, it is by no means a given no matter what your age. I'm no Crosby fan but you see the details in his game and you just know that guy puts in the time. Not sure if Willy is of the same stock.
 

Nithoniniel

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Sep 7, 2012
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Tough to say. I think he has the talent to improve. My question would be: why would he bother? His GM just gave him 45 million dollars after a couple 61pt seasons. That contract will expire and he'll be a UFA, almost guaranteed another big payday even if what he's shown so far is his level. Getting better is hard work, it is by no means a given no matter what your age. I'm no Crosby fan but you see the details in his game and you just know that guy puts in the time. Not sure if Willy is of the same stock.
Nylander is known to be an incredibly hard worker off the ice. Constantly in the gym, constantly working on details in his game. Unless that's changed in the last few years, I don't think there's a reason to doubt his commitment to get better.
 

talitintti

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Oct 13, 2018
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Nylander is known to be an incredibly hard worker off the ice. Constantly in the gym, constantly working on details in his game. Unless that's changed in the last few years, I don't think there's a reason to doubt his commitment to get better.
Every NHLer today is.

Only time will tell if he actually improves or not. Have heard those stories of so many NHL players, gotta be result-orientated.
 
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obey86

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Jun 9, 2009
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He's a good player, but was always incredibly overrated. Is he even playing center yet or does he still ride Auston Matthews coattails?
 

Albus Dumbledore

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Mar 28, 2015
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He's a good player, but was always incredibly overrated. Is he even playing center yet or does he still ride Auston Matthews coattails?
He was playing wing when he came back with kadri. Then center when kadri went down. Then back to wing on kadris line when kadri came back. And now he's on Matthews wing. Taking strong side draws.
 

Rubi

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I'll be surprised if next year he has a season that was as awful as this year was.
That being said I've never been impressed with Willie's compete level day in and day out so I expect him to be a regular 60 pt player throughout his career that's overpaid because when he isn't scoring he's usually not an impact player.
 

firstemperor

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May 25, 2011
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I would be surprised if Willy isn't a consistent ~70 point player, at minimum, down the line. Some underwhelming usage (at no fault of his own), combined with missing camp, bad puck luck, etc. doesn't change that.

I think every rational fan knew this season was a wash for Nylander and that we'd only judge his year because of the contract holdout based on how he performs in the playoffs. The truth is, he's still a very good young promising player that is still developing. He has yet to take the next step like Marner has, where you can expect him to be great night-in and night-out.
 

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