The Maple Leafs signed William Nylander to the richest contract in franchise history last January.
The eight-year deal locked Nylander in until 2032, longer than any player on the team, and was worth $92 million. The contract came with a cap hit of $11.5 million, which made Nylander one of the highest-paid players in the league — tied for sixth this season, in fact, trailing only Auston Matthews, Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid, Artemi Panarin and Elias Pettersson.
That might help to explain not only Nylander’s frustration with his playing time one month into the season, but also his willingness to voice that frustration to head coach Craig Berube – publicly and privately.
The Leafs agreed to pay Nylander like one of the top players (and forwards) in the world. He wants to be played like it.
“I think it helps my game a lot to do what I want to be able to do out there,” Nylander said of his desires for more ice time, which I advocated for on Monday.
Nylander played only 17:34 versus Seattle on Thursday. He scored twice. He’s now averaging just under 18 minutes per game, which puts him, barely, inside the top 100 NHL forwards this season (tied for 99th) and slightly behind young up-and-comers like Cole Sillinger and Connor Zary as well as old guys like Nick Foligno, Kyle Palmieri, Claude Giroux and the 39-year-old version of Alex Ovechkin.
It’s about two full minutes less than he averaged last season, when he was basically even with good pal David Pastrňák (who continues to play similar minutes for the Bruins this season).
Berube wouldn’t commit to ceding to Nylander’s demands. But he should.
He might ask himself this simple question: How does he get the most out of Nylander, the second- or third-best player on the team?
Does he do that by squeezing his ice time, even a little, and frustrating Nylander in the process? Or does he do that by getting him on the ice as much as he can handle, and empowering him that way?
What’s to gain by holding him down? If Nylander doesn’t live up to his end of the bargain by playing well in bigger minutes, then a dip in ice time might be warranted.
Nylander would be right to point out he delivered the best season of his career playing all those minutes last season: 40 goals and 98 points. His 3.6 points per 60 minutes ranked 10th in the NHL.
He was also arguably the Leafs’ best player in the playoffs when he was healthy.
“What I try to do is I try to get him out there, if deserved, as much as I can,” Berube said.
As Berube pointed out — and a decision he ultimately makes — Nylander no longer kills penalties. That alone was worth about a minute of Nylander’s ice time last season. Nylander’s five-on-five time is also down by over a minute, though that might be at least partially explained by the Leafs playing a bit less at five-on-five this season what with all the penalties.
That should normalize as the season unfolds.
Berube might also be inclined to use Nylander more if his current line continues to cook. Previous iterations of the Leafs’ second line weren’t working and Nylander’s opportunity seemed to suffer because of it. However, the newly-united threesome of Nylander, Max Pacioretty and John Tavares has been superb in two games together — the Leafs have outscored teams 5-0 and outshot them 16-7.
The trio logged 10:42 together against Seattle, just a minute less than than the top unit of Matthews, Mitch Marner and Matthew Knies.
Berube should continue to look for opportunities to drop Nylander out there for offensive zone faceoffs with Matthews and Marner whenever he can. He’s done it sporadically so far, mostly when the Leafs have been flat and in need of a spark. He might also look Nylander’s way immediately after the Leafs finish off killing off a penalty and when the team is defending a late lead against an empty net.
Nylander took on late-game responsibilities more frequently than ever before last season.
Splitting up the stars onto two power-play units, on the other hand, might rob Nylander of some of the opportunity he drew last season (though Berube seems inclined to eventually reconnect the stars together on PP1).
Berube was obviously brought here to push the Leafs and to push Nylander. But it’s also ultimately in his best interests as head coach to make this relationship work as well it possibly can. And from the looks of it, it’s been bumpy so far.
Soon after he was hired as Leafs coach, Berube called Nylander and told him he might be playing centre in the upcoming season. He called back later to confirm it. Nylander was game. Only one request: He needed time.
The experiment didn’t even last the preseason. Nylander couldn’t have been happy about it.
Throughout training camp and the early days of the regular season, the two have engaged in what look to be animated conversations on the ice daily, the subject of which we now know included ice time.
Berube needs the best version of Nylander that he can get.
Nylander hasn’t had the same rocking start to the season as he did one year ago, when he registered at least a point in the first 17 games to tie for the eighth-longest such streak in NHL history. His play has been up and down so far this fall, not unlike Matthews, Marner and the rest of the Leafs.
Yet he still leads the team with eight goals and 12 points, tied for the latter with Marner.
“Willy’s played good hockey for us this year. I don’t have a problem with his game,” Berube said. “Ice time’s ice time. I try to use my bench the best I can. I think everybody’s important. I try to manage the bench that way. People have roles. I use them in those roles.”
What this really comes down to is a couple shifts more a night for Nylander. He ranks fourth among Leaf forwards in drawing 20.7 shifts per game to this point, down from the 22.6 he picked up last season.
Berube can find those shifts if he wants to. He should.
— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Hockey-Reference
(Top photo by Chris Tanouye/Getty Images)
