William Nylander on excelling under Craig Berube and his next lofty goal for Maple Leafs

William Nylander and Craig Berube appeared to get off to a rocky start this past fall.

There was Nylander’s move to centre, which Berube squashed almost immediately at training camp, Nylander’s public plea for more ice time soon after, and some animated conversations along the way between star and head coach at practice.

Whatever apparent tension there was then is gone now, it seems.

During a one-on-one conversation with The Athletic this week, which touched on a variety of subjects including the rationale behind his desire for more minutes, Nylander raved about Berube and the job he was doing as the Maple Leafs head coach.

“I think that what Craig brings to the table is huge,” Nylander said. “He’s obviously won before, and I think he’s a great person, great communicator. If there’s ever anything that you feel you can go talk to him and he’s honest with what he thinks.”

“He says what’s up every day,” Nylander said of Berube’s communication style, noting that often their conversations had nothing to do with hockey. “Obviously a little different playing style than before, but it’s been good.”

What felt different for Nylander about that playing style, which has the Leafs playing more risk-averse offensively than under Sheldon Keefe? “A little bit more chipping the puck, forechecking,” he said.

“I think it’s better we’re giving up less, that’s for sure,” Nylander said. “I think it’s also been a little bit of an adjustment of how to play under Chief’s system. I think for the most part of the season the chances have been there. We just haven’t been capitalizing at the pace that we normally have.

“We haven’t been scoring on the Grade A’s that we’re getting that we would’ve scored on last year. It’ll come.”

He said this a day before the Leafs exploded for five goals against Dallas, the NHL’s top defensive team.

Zero into Nylander’s five-on-five minutes and just about everything offensively looks as it did before, a credit to the season that Nylander is putting together, especially given that he was centered for lengthy chunks by Pontus Holmberg and a then-struggling Max Domi.

This week brought a rare chance to play with both Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. The three stars, collectively earning $34 million and change this season, started a game together on Wednesday night for the first time since Feb. 13, 2020.

“When you get out there for a shift here and there, like every third game, an O-zone draw, then it’s a little bit harder,” Nylander said of establishing a connection. “And now we’ve practised together, which I’ve never done before either.”

Though it was far from a dominant night, the line got cooking as the evening wore on and eventually connected for the game-tying goal when Matthews set up Nylander’s 19th of the year.

“I feel like the chemistry builds really quickly,” Nylander said.

Perhaps lost a teeny bit amid Marner’s surge, strong play in the Leaf crease, Chris Tanev’s impact, and the resurgence of John Tavares is Nylander scoring more than ever. He’s on pace for 51 goals, leading the Leafs with 20 in 32 games. That’s got him hanging around the Rocket Richard Trophy race. All this after back-to-back 40-goal seasons.

“Next goal is try to get 50,” Nylander said with a grin. “I need to get a couple the next few nights to keep a good pace.”

He ended up with two in Dallas, adding a late empty-netter.

Some of the uptick is easily explained by hot shooting: Almost 18 percent so far, which would be a career high.

Nylander is winning a lot of his goals from just where his coach would like: In the slot and around the net.

There’s also this easily overlooked fact about Nylander: He boasts one of the hardest shots in the NHL.

Nylander entered Wednesday’s game with a top shot speed of 151 kilometres an hour, which ranked in the NHL’s 95th percentile. He had 42 shots between 113-129 km/hour, which sat in the 97th percentile, and 18 more between 129-145, which ranked in the 96th percentile.

More and more lately, Nylander has been finding holes in the defence again, sneaking in for the kind of breaks that were so frequent in previous seasons but had disappeared in the early Berube days. He slipped behind the Stars’ defence to get on the board in Dallas.

“I feel like those things, they just happen all the time for a little bit and then they fade away and then they come back,” Nylander said.

Willy being Willy 😎 pic.twitter.com/ergum8trfO

— Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) December 19, 2024

Nylander’s overall production is still down.

After hanging around the NHL scoring leaders all of last season, and ultimately finishing with a career-best 98 points, Nylander is currently sitting just outside the top 20 in league scoring right now with 33 points (putting him on pace for 85). What’s changed is a drop in assists, at five-on-five especially where he’s registered a total of five.

That would seem to be a product, at least in part, of all those minutes with Holmberg, Domi, and (a then-struggling) Nick Robertson, among others.

Berube heard Nylander out and has boosted his minutes considerably in the past couple of months — from just under 18 minutes a night in October to almost 21 on average since, more appropriate for a player of his calibre and in line with the likes of Sam Reinhart, David Pastrnak and Matthews.

“Eighteen minutes is a good amount of ice time,” Nylander said. “But some games (early on), because there was so much (penalty killing for our team), I was playing like 15 minutes and I said (to Craig), then it’s hard for me to play.”

What made it difficult, Nylander felt, was hard to explain. It was a certain rhythm that kicked in with more frequent shifts, a sharpness that diminished with the elimination of his penalty-killing role this season.

“To do the things that I want to be able to do on the ice like maybe you’re skating and you want to get a step, you gotta put it in between the guy’s stick, the more you’re into the game the easier it is,” he said.

“Eighteen is fine, 19, 20. But every player wants to play as much as he can,” Nylander added, chuckling.

Part of how Berube has upped those minutes is the Alex Ovechkin power-play approach, that is, having Nylander play on both power-play units. Nylander is one of the NHL’s premier power-play operators, top 10 in the NHL in power-play points per 60 minutes since the start of last season.

In other words, why not get him out there more often?

Nylander is averaging about four minutes a game on the power play since mid-November, tops on the Leafs and only a few seconds behind Matthew Tkachuk for first in the entire NHL.

“I don’t know whose idea that was. I just, one game, was told I’m playing two minutes or playing both units,” Nylander said. “It’s nice. Especially when I don’t PK. I PK’d last year, so if I lose some ice time there — it helps me get that ice time.”

Of his season to this point, Nylander said, “I mean, I think it’s been good. I would want some more production. It’s also — the chances are there. It would be different if the chances weren’t there, you know what I mean?”

— Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and Hockey Reference

(Top photo: Patrick Smith / Getty Images)