THE WAITING GAME
The Maple Leafs are preaching patience as William Nylander gets up to speed.
The coach makes out the lineup. So what do you figure the odds are of this coach — Mike Babcock Esq. — giving William Nylander a seat in the press box anytime soon? Any time ever? Nah. For one thing, that would make Kyle Dubas look like a fool after all that wooing. Not even Babcock would risk going nuclear with his GM. Besides, in the kinder, gentler NHL, failure to launch isn’t punished as in days of hardass yore, except maybe for fourth liners and seventh defencemen. Tinkering around the edges.
Not that the Leafs need much tinkering, holding down second place overall behind Tampa. Ten points shy of the Lightning in the Atlantic Division, but still. Kind of remarkable Toronto has stayed even that close, given that the Bolts have been on a 14-1 tear.
Rather, Nylander gets rewarded by restoration to the Auston Matthews unit, undertaken part way through last Saturday’s phlegmatic 4-0 loss to the Islanders. At practice Wednesday morning, the recently shorn Swede was on a line with Matthews and Andreas Johnsson.
Whatever it takes to jolt Nylander out of his goal-scoring torpor. Hasn’t lit the lamp in 11 games since returning to the fold following interminable contract negotiations. Has tallied a mere two assists.
Of course, much of this rustiness was to be expected. The team had a two-month jump on Nylander. At least the 22year-old no longer looks like he needs a tank of oxygen at the bench after every shift. One cheesy goal, off somebody’s rump, could uncork Nylander’s obvious offensive gifts.
The underlying numbers aren’t so bad: 50 shot attempts, 40 per cent of them getting through. His game is coming ’round, hands softer, timing improved. It really is largely about timing. Yet, let’s be honest, nobody anticipated quite this much of a struggle a month in.
Teammates feel his frustration. But they can’t dwell on it. And you can’t talk a player out of his funk.
“He’s still so young, sometimes you can forget that,’’ reminds John Tavares, who, while never having experienced a similar holdout wrangle, has certainly contended with his own occasional lean passages.
“He was basically three months behind.’’ Including training camp. “That’s not a level playing field. All of us have kind of got it back, at this point in the season, the rhythm and the intensity and the level we’re playing at. It’s going to take him some time to get that back on a consistent basis.
“I know for myself, when there were times that things weren’t going my way, when I was younger, I always tell myself, I’ve played this game my whole life. I’ve had a lot of success at every level. It’s going to turn. The same for Willy. He’s too good of a hockey player.’’
While certainly a leader in the dressing room, more by example than intervention, Tavares says he’s tried to keep it on the down-low with advice for Nylander. “Nothing specific. Willy is a pretty aware guy. To have the success he’s had early in his career, in this market, he understands what he has to do and not to let other people’s opinions get to him. So I just tell him that he’s really close.’’
Tavares skated with Nylander over the summer before the latter returned to Sweden. He liked the composure and talent he saw. But of course there will be stutter steps before Nylander finds his groove. No training camp had huge consequences. “A lot of things that I noticed that happened in training camp, and early in the season, a lot of shots getting blocked or you’re barely hitting a defenceman’s stick on a play — that’s just timing,” says Tavares. “I think Willy has had the puck a lot, he’s skating well. Those are good signs. Those plays that just don’t seem to connect or just don’t get the fortunate bounce, they’ll eventually turn for him because he’s right there.”
As if Nylander is still on Chapter 1 while the rest of the team is halfway through the book. Almost halfway through the season, No. 40 Thursday’s matinee versus the Wild. It gets mucky for everybody at this time of the year when you can see neither the end nor the beginning. Games grind, energy can lag.
“When you get to the second half of the year and certainly when you get to, I find, the all-star-trade-deadline area, there’s only so many games and so many points left,” says Tavares. “The competitiveness only continues to grow, how tight things are. The way games are even called gets tighter. It just becomes that much more of a battle on a nightly basis to get the points you need, the results you need.”
Toronto’s hard work and success has bought them some breathing room.
“We had a really good start, especially on the road,” Tavares continues. “Went into the Christmas break fairly well, now we’ve had quite a few days to rest up and we’ve got a favourable month schedule-wise. We’re playing some really good teams, competing in all different situations over the standings. That’s got to get you hungry.’’
Take a bite, Willy.