William Nylander is a certified playoff performer for the Toronto Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs won Game 1 5–4 at home against the Florida Panthers to take a 1–0 lead in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs—led by a three point night from William Nylander. Nylander has been stepping up big time this playoffs so far and if previous years are any indication, he’s nowhere near done yet.

Nylander was selected eighth overall in the 2014 NHL Draft, but he didn’t crack the Leafs roster until the 2015–16 season, playing 22 games. Making him the longest serving Leaf out of what is now known as the “Core Four.”

Doubt From Day One

Everybody remembers Don Cherry’s rant after the Leafs opted to pick Nylander instead of Nick Ritchie. “They sent him back to Sweden to save his life,” said Cherry. Hindsight is always 20/20, but look what this kid is doing now!

After his entry level contract ran out, Nylander signed a six-year contract with the Leafs in 2018, which had an average annual value of $6.9M. Again, the Leafs received backlash from the Toronto Media. Sid Seixeiro, who at the time was with Sportsnet, went on a rant before he even signed, talking about how the Leafs overpaid for Nylander. Many people felt that $6.9M was too much to give a 20-goal scorer.

Ever since Nylander’s rookie season in 2016–17 along with Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews, the Leafs have yet to miss the playoffs. Now different teams define success in different ways. For some franchises making the playoffs and generating playoff revenue is enough. Not so much for other teams, and in those situations it’s to compete for a Stanley Cup or bust.

A common stereotype for Swedish players in the NHL is they don’t care about winning and they just want their money and stats, then they go home. Look at a guy like Filip Forsberg, in the 2023–24 season he puts up 46 goals and breaks the Nashville Predators single season goal record. However, in the playoffs he scored two goals in six games. That’s the stereotype, Swedes don’t care about winning in the NHL.

Stepping up when it matters

Not Nylander, he’ll go balls out every night in the playoffs. In 61 career playoff games, he has 55 points. Marner has 59 points in 64 games, and Matthews has 55 points in 62 games. However, Nylander, with two goals in Game 6 against the Ottawa Senators, puts himself into second in Leafs franchise history in goals in elimination games.

1, Wendel Clark (10)
2, William Nylander (9)
3, Darryl Sittler (8)
4, Lanny McDonald (8)
5, Dave Keon (7)

Dating back to last season, Nylander missed the beginning of the series due to an injury, he helped the Leafs battle back from a Boston 3–1 series lead to force a Game 7. He had two goals in Game 6 of that series in a 2–1 victory. Do they get to Game 7 if Nylander is out for the whole series? Probably not. Even though Nylander only had three goals in four games, he had the same amount of goals as Marner had points in the series, and had more goals than Matthews did in one less game. Matthews was also injured and only played five games.

Showing up consistently when your team needs you to drive the bus, and then continuing to do it in the playoffs is how you earn your contract. Which is why the Leafs extended Nylander’s contract for eight years for a total of $92M, $11.5M per year until the 2031–32 season. Nylander will be 36-years-old when that contract expires.

Has Nylander dethroned Matthews?

Some people would argue that Nylander has become the Leafs best player, after scoring 40 goals in 2023–24, and following it up this season with 45 goals. Nylander has come a long way from being the “career 20-goal scorer” the media labelled him as seven years ago. But, it’s one thing to perform in the regular season but the playoffs are a different beast.

So far this playoffs, Nylander has put up five goals and seven assists for 12 points in the Leafs seven playoff games. Which is good enough to be tied for the league lead in points so far with Kyle Connor and Mikko Rantanen. Nylander has more goals so far than Marner does points and he’s an upcoming UFA. If Marner plays well in this series and the Leafs go on to win, he could potentially get a black check from the Leafs.

Hopefully Nylander’s three point performance in Game 1 is a sign of things to come for the rest of the series because it’ll be a tight one and we’re going to need him.