The night before they played their first game as teammates in the NHL, there was dinner.
It was Saturday night. The chef for the evening: Dad.
William and Alex Nylander wanted steak, so that’s what their former NHL-playing father, known in the family for his cooking mastery, made. That, and a salad.
“They had a menu in their heads,” Michael Nylander told The Athletic on the concourse of Scotiabank Arena in between the second and third period of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Sunday night win over the Utah Hockey Club, which featured the Nylander Bros. playing together for the first time as NHL teammates.
William and Alex had been dreaming of this from the time they were still boys, playing mini sticks in and around the dressing rooms of the NHL teams their father played for, that the two of them, not only brothers who spent basically every minute together as kids but also besties who live together in William’s place in Stockholm during the NHL offseason, who are “like stuck” according to pal Rasmus Sandin, could one day play together in the NHL, on the same team.
“I think this is what every hockey-playing brother pair wishes for as kids, to be able to do that with their brother,” William said.
Styles² pic.twitter.com/umsJO0DhMU
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) November 25, 2024
For a while, it looked like it might never happen.
William was drafted by the Leafs in 2014 and grew, year by year, into an NHL superstar. Alex was picked by the Buffalo Sabres in 2016, meanwhile, and bounced around NHL and AHL outposts, never quite finding a home.
The Columbus Blue Jackets opted not to bring him back even after a 23-game stint in which he scored 11 times, which made Alex a free agent. Which made the dream, suddenly, a possibility. Alex signed a one-year contract with the Toronto Marlies in late July. The goal: to play with the Leafs — and play with his brother.
“That’s one of the biggest reasons he signed a contract is to reach that goal, eventually, and just prove himself and play as good as possible with the Marlies and see what happens,” Michael said. “He picked this route.”
In other words, this was the plan. A long-shot plan, perhaps, but a plan nonetheless, or a summer dream anyway one step closer to becoming reality.
William was out with his dad looking at taps for his condo renovation Friday when his phone rang. It was Leafs general manager Brad Treliving. The Leafs, Treliving told William, were signing his brother to an NHL contract.
Yet another injury — this one to Matthew Knies, on top of Auston Matthews, Max Pacioretty, Calle Järnkrok, Max Domi and David Kämpf — plus a suspension to Ryan Reaves, made it so the NHL squad needed one more forward from the Marlies in addition to the others already recalled.
Alex had done his part to earn a call-up with eight goals and 12 points in 14 AHL games.
William’s elation burst through the phone on his call from Treliving. Michael was emotional, surprisingly so. He thought back to the times he played alongside both of his sons in Sweden, when he was still kicking around the game professionally in his early 40s and both were still teenagers eyeing the NHL.
“And I never thought that could happen, either,” Michael said. “And now, these guys are together in the NHL and playing on the (same) team, it’s a great feeling.”
William and Alex became only the fifth set of brothers to play a game together for the Leafs. And though they operated on separate lines against Utah, the two ended up on the ice for almost five minutes together — nearly half of Alex’s ice time.
Most of it came when William stuck around for shifts with the Alex-included No. 2 power-play unit.
Alex, wearing the same No. 92 as dad once wore in the NHL, was on the ice when his older brother stripped Logan Cooley inside the Leafs blue line and raced in for his 14th goal of the season, the eventual game winner for the Leafs. It was the first time, on a night of firsts, the Nylander brothers were on the ice together for an NHL goal as teammates.
“If he stays up, it’d be nice to get some more together,” William said afterward.
Today’s someday 💙 https://t.co/Q1g4bgyztu pic.twitter.com/gP6ZQ4Dn2c
— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) November 24, 2024
William would sometimes sneak onto the ice for practice with Alex’s team when they were growing up, but the whole teammate thing hadn’t really happened, with the exception of the 2016 world juniors. As Alex recalled it, the experience lasted all of two shifts before William was injured on a blindside hit.
Hockey was, not surprisingly, central to their childhood, which saw the family following Michael all over North America and finally to Sweden.
“They loved hockey. They were playing all the time,” Michael recalled of his two boys. “As soon as school was over, they always ran after their hockey sticks, (their skates) — playing outside, down in the basement. They’d be with the hockey stick in their hand, somehow.”
Fights weren’t infrequent. “But then after the fight, no matter what happened,” Alex told me last fall, “we would be best friends again.”
Even as their professional careers diverged, the boys still reconvened every summer in Sweden where they would walk William’s dogs down by the water in Stockholm, enjoy dinners at Ciccio’s and train for the upcoming season with other pro players under the direction of their father.
“He prepared himself like he always does,” Michael said of Alex. “Hard work seems to have paid off now.”
How long this unique experience lasts for the two of them, and for the family, will depend on what the younger brother can do with this opportunity.
The Leafs could use (a lot) more offence from their bottom two lines. If Alex can provide a spark on that front, there’s a chance he can hold on to a spot even after some of those injured players start to trickle back, which won’t be anytime soon in the case of Järnkrok, Pacioretty or Kämpf. He also requires waivers, which might keep him around longer than those who don’t — i.e., Nikita Grebenkin and Fraser Minten.
“I’ve just gotta work hard every shift, be heavy on the forecheck, win battles, and when I do that, the rest of my game comes,” Alex said. “Obviously, just try to use my shot as much as possible, create plays and be good defensively.”
“In the NHL, you have to (know) what to do with the puck in certain areas and play smart hockey,” Michael, a veteran of more than 900 games, said. “And at the same time, be brave. To make plays. That’s what great players do. Great players are making great plays at different moments of the game.”
Precisely what William continues to do frequently for the Leafs. He’s on pace for 55 goals this season.
“William is playing unbelievable,” his dad said.
What Michael noticed with his elder son was how much his consistency had improved game to game over the last four seasons in particular. “His lowest level is higher,” Michael said.
In other words, William’s B-game was a lot stronger than it used to be. William had a 17-game point streak to start last season, one of the longest in NHL history, and has scored at least once in 11 of the first 21 games this season, the third most in the league.
“He wants to be a difference-maker in playing great defence and working hard and forechecking and winning battles, getting pucks out, getting pucks in,” Michael said. “He is growing every year.”
Michael doesn’t often do interviews. He has preferred to let the play of his boys speak for itself. But this was different. This was a unique and exciting time for him and for the family, but mostly, he emphasized, it was a special time for the boys.
This was about them and a surging Leafs team. “That’s No. 1,” Michael concluded. “That Alex and William are here together is of course great. But they’re both here to help the Leafs win hockey games.”
(Photo: Kevin Sousa / NHLI via Getty Images)
