Leafs need Nylander to prove he can drive second line

William Nylander’s skeptics have been effectively silenced over the past three seasons.

The dynamic Swede finally found a scoring touch to couple with his high-end two way play, paving the way for a $92-million dollar commitment from the Toronto Maple Leafs in January.

But this season, under new head coach Craig Berube, the stakes have been raised. Toronto is paying Nylander to be a star, capable of driving his own line and elevating the teammates around him — whoever they may be. It’s a high bar to clear, one reserved for only the game’s best.

With the business side taken care of by way of his eight-year extension, attention has now shifted to lineup construction. There too, Nylander has been the centre of attention – no pun intended.

Berube appears ready to dress Nylander as his second-line centre, a position the Swede has flirted with in stretches of his career, including as recently as last year’s pre-season under then-head coach Sheldon Keefe. The hope is that Nylander can be productive enough in the centre role to protect the rest of the Maple Leafs lineup, which would mean John Tavares anchoring the team’s third line, and David Kampf the fourth.

Much of that discussion has concerned Nylander’s comfort at centre and how long a transition to a full-time role may take. I think there’s a fascinating tangential question, and perhaps a more important one for the Maple Leafs long  term. And that’s whether Nylander is capable of driving high-calibre play on his own, without the indomitable scoring touch of Auston Matthews on his hip.

That is not a slight to Nylander. Any player in the league would see their numbers surge playing with a goal scorer the calibre of Matthews. But it’s not just about losing the presence of Matthews — it’s about being able to win shifts with other teammates, teammates who may be less effective in all three zones.

Though it’s mostly been at the wing, there has been a considerable difference in Nylander’s on-ice production when playing without Matthews. And again, the issue isn’t the drop-off in and of itself — that’s to be expected. It’s the magnitude of the decline, and the reality that many of these shifts have ended up being losses for Toronto.

If we isolate Nylander and Matthews’ play over the past three seasons (where Nylander has established himself as a premium scorer), you find a meaningful performance drawdown in the 2,500 minutes Nylander's spent away from Matthews:

On a planet without Oilers superstar Connor McDavid, Matthews is arguably the best player in the world, and this is the reason why – he has a 55 per cent goal share with Nylander and a 62 per cent (yes, it’s higher) goal share when Nylander is off his line. In short: the Matthews line, irrespective of who is on it, is typically going to outscore the opposition at a fierce rate.

That hasn’t necessarily been the case with Nylander. Over this three-year stretch, the Maple Leafs have actually been outscored by a goal in the minutes Nylander has played without Matthews.

The graph on the right side is the tell here: Toronto has seen a precipitous shooting percentage dip in these minutes, nearly three percentage points worse in every scenario where Matthews is not around. That’s a problem, unless you are playing dominant defensive hockey supported by quality goaltending.

Nylander has shot above 11 per cent on his own over this same period, so some of this may boil down to playmaking ability on the line, as well as the quality of shooters he’s been playing with. Outside of Matthews, it’s been a lot of Tavares, and a rotation of Michael Bunting, Alex Kerfoot, and Tyler Bertuzzi filling out the Nylander line. Plenty of quality hockey players, but not exactly a stable of top-six snipers.

Considering the teammate mix (and the intermittent horror show that’s been Toronto’s goaltending), it is hard to place much of the blame for the Maple Leafs  underperformance beyond Matthews at the feet of Nylander.

But now on a superstar-level contract, we must grade Nylander more stringently. The company he’s keeping includes some of the best players in the world, players who win their minutes in most every scenario. You simply cannot have a second line in Toronto getting 49 per cent of the goals this season and be satisfied; in fact, in such a scenario, you might be on the outside looking in come playoff time.

That said, I think Toronto is making a very sensible early-season bet. Only the coaching staff right now has a good feel for how capable Nylander is at the centre position and how much time a full transition may take, but we are still talking about one of the more skilled forwards in the world.

And if Nylander can drive meaningful results and anchor the second line, he not only takes so much scoring pressure off the Matthews line, he makes Toronto a decisively tougher matchup and deeper team.