Nylander’s monster deal not so scary one year later
With his Hollywood hair and his occasional shirtless Instagram post, William Nylander has never appeared to lack confidence.
Which is part of the reason why, a year ago this week, Nylander was celebrating a life-changing financial victory. A player of lesser self-belief would have never fathomed the sixyear contract worth $41.8 million (U.S.) that Nylander signed with the Maple Leafs 12 months ago on Sunday, if only because a player of lesser self-belief would have never gutted out such a dangerous game of deadline chicken. But with the threat of losing Nylander for the season looming, Toronto GM Kyle Dubas agreed to a player-friendly, frontloaded sweetheart of a deal.
In the ensuing handful of months, Nylander returned the favour by playing like a player who wasn’t worth half of it. After overpaying on the premise the Leafs couldn’t afford to make an important playoff run without Nylander, the high-priced winger scored precisely one playoff goal.
So you’ll excuse Dubas for expressing palpable relief on Monday when, in the course of introducing new Marlies coach Greg Moore to the local media, the GM was asked about Nylander’s recent run of impressive form. Nylander will enter Tuesday night’s game in Philadelphia on pace for 32 goals and 64 points this season — both of which would be career highs. That’s a stark contrast from a season ago, when the Swede’s truncated 54-game campaign yielded seven goals — the stuff of 10-goal pace for an 82-game schedule.
“This is what we paid for,” Dubas said of this season’s version of Nylander. “I’m excited for him, because I think last year was a difficult year. As I said at the end of last season — and it’s on me — I wish we would have found a conclusion earlier … It didn’t set him up for success at all, and he’s obviously been excellent this
season, and he’s got the numbers to back it up — underlying, in general, statistics are all excellent,” Dubas said.
Excellent, sure, as long as you acknowledge the league-wide hierarchy of such hyperbole. Fans in Boston would point out that Nylander’s old pal David Pastrnak, who signed a six-year deal worth $40 million a little more than a year before the Leafs winger, was leading the league with 25 goals in 27 games. On Monday afternoon, in other words, Pastrnak was on pace for a 75-goal and 127point season. So there’s excellent, and then there’s that.
Still, if you’re reconsidering the value of the contract on the one-year anniversary of its fêting, consider this: Among NHL forwards, Nylander’s cap hit of $6.9 million now ranks 44th; heading into Monday his 22 points ranked 41st. After last season’s disastrous results, a case can be made he’s slightly overachieving.
And as for Nylander’s famed confidence, if it was ever depleted by the lean times, it appears to have been fully restored to its usual all-world levels.
“It’s something that our team needs from him every night is that swagger of his, and he’s brought it every night,” said Mitch Marner of Nylander.
“It’s not Instagram confidence. It’s that real self-confidence, and he’s showing it,” Dermott said of Nylander. “He’s one of the best players in the league when he’s on his game, and he’s been proving it.”
Which is not to say, with the franchise still out of the playoff picture as measured by points percentage on Monday afternoon, that anyone in Leafland was revelling in self-satisfaction.
“I still think (Nylander) has other levels of his game he can get to,” Dubas said.
One of those areas of potential improvement, one has to think, lies on the power play. And it bodes well for Nylander that, a season after he almost never got a sniff on Toronto’s top unit under Mike Babcock, he seems likely to be a fixture there under head coach Sheldon Keefe. At Monday’s practice, he was manning the middle-ice bumper spot fresh from scoring his first power-play goal in 25 games in Saturday’s win over the Sabres.
After underachieving under Babcock all season, Toronto’s man-advantage squad is 3for-8 since the change behind the bench. Which didn’t stop Keefe from making a practiceice tweak on Monday. With Marner back on the first power-play unit, manning the left flank that had previously been occupied by Tyson Barrie, long-time top-unit quarterback Morgan Rielly was bumped to the second unit, leaving Barrie to direct the first group from the point.
It was a temporary swap. Keefe said Marner is close to returning after missing more than three weeks with a high ankle sprain, but he is not an option to play in Tuesday’s game. That means it’s likely Rielly will be back on the first unit for at least another night. Still, when Marner returns, the change seems inevitable enough that on Monday Rielly appeared accepting of it.
“I think it’s good,” Rielly said. “I talked to Keefer today. (Barrie) is outstanding on the power play. He’s got a great shot and he’s been doing it for a long time. Especially with our unit that hasn’t exactly been scorching hot, I think it’s a good opportunity to change things up.”
Keefe, mind you, cautioned that change is always temporary until proven otherwise.
“We can go back to (the previous power-play deployment) at any time,” Keefe said.
But Marner, for his part, promised a more inventive, more effective attack with the man advantage with this new incarnation.
“There’s going to be a lot more movement on it, trying to find more holes and more open spaces,” Marner said. “I think if we start doing that with the skill we have, we should really confuse the (opposing penalty killers).”
Asked to look back on the one-year anniversary of his contract’s consummation, Nylander, a man of few words, offered a few more.
“I was really excited — just excited to get over here and get going again,” he said.
That he’s finally got something going — well, this is precisely what the Leafs paid for, even if it’s a long way from declaring the investment paid off.