Elliotte Friedman was a guest on the Pat McAfee Show and was asked about the latest rumor regarding William Nylander. Wanting to know if Nylander was missing games due to off-ice issues or an injury, Friedman said it didn’t believe it was off-ice issues causing Nylander to miss games. Friedman did admit that narrative was out there, but he looked into it and was vehemently told those rumors were not accurate.
It’s tough to know what’s going on with Nylander because the Toronto Maple Leafs are being fairly hush-hush about the whole thing. The latest word is from head coach Sheldon Keefe who said Nylander might be available for Game 3. The forward has been practicing, but isn’t playing. Toronto media is coming up with conspiracy theories to try and explain things, but Friedman believes it’s as simple as an untimely injury.
Saying the Leafs could have handled this news about Nylander a lot better to avoid the questions and unfortunate narratives that are now out there but I said, “With Nylander, I don’t believe it’s discipline, I just don’t.” He added:
“I think those rumors are out there because nature abhors a vacuum… I just think that he got hurt late in the regular season. The Maple Leafs were resting all their injured guys, they had a bunch of guys who didn’t play late in the year, I don’t believe for a second if they knew there was anything wrong with him they would have allowed him to chase 100 points. I think he got hurt in one of the last two games of the season but didn’t really notice an issue until the day after, last Thursday, and now, you know, he’s day to day. We’ll see.”
Friedman said again that he looked into disciplinary rumors and people “have furiously denied it.”
Fans Are Looking for The Injury
McAfee noted that the controversy is brewing with fans looking at Game 82 of the season and trying to find where Nylander got hurt. No one has been able to find it, so as one can imagine, some are trying to find another reason Nylander would be out.
The reality is that Nylander would have had to do something incredibly bad to be held out of critical playoff games for disciplinary reasons. That would be the organization risking everything just to send a message.
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