William Nylander’s 2025-26 season is a good example of why evaluating star players can’t simply begin and end with the points column.
Nylander was easily the Leafs’ most productive player. He scored 30 goals and 79 points in only 65 games, putting him on a 100-point pace over a full season. He led the team in scoring by eight points despite playing 17 fewer games than John Tavares, and nobody else on the roster was particularly close to matching his offensive impact on a per-game basis (1.22 PPG was actually the highest of Nylander’s career!).
There were stretches, as there always are with Nylander, when he looked absolutely unstoppable. When he is engaged, attacking defenders with speed, transporting the puck through the neutral zone, and playing with confidence offensively, there are very few wingers in the league who can match the total package.
Last season, no stretch stands out more in the memory bank than when — coming off his 11-game goal-less drought, and at a time when the team lost five of its last six games — Nylander rattled off a four-point game in a 6-3 win over Pittsburgh, kicking off a 16-points-in-nine-game pre-Olympics heater in which the Leafs almost got their season back on the rails with a 7-1-1 run.
Nylander has been one of the league’s premier offensive wingers for years now, and there really isn’t much of a debate left on that front. He entered the season with 40, 40, and 45 goal totals over his previous three years, including finishing second in the entire NHL in goals in 2024-25. Even in a disastrous Leafs season in which basically everything around him went sideways, his offensive production remained at an elite level.
That is clearly immensely valuable. At the same time, Nylander’s season was a little more complicated than simply pointing at the points and moving on.
It bears mentioning off the top that injuries were a notable part of Nylander’s 2025-26 campaign — unusual for a player who has generally been remarkably healthy throughout his career. He dealt with various issues over the course of the year, including a stretch in December when we suspected something wasn’t right physically as his skating and overall engagement noticeably dropped off. He then missed time around the turn of the calendar before returning with a three-point performance against Vancouver, only to aggravate a lower-body/groin injury in Vegas days later after catching a rut on his first shift. He attempted to play through it — even recording a goal and an assist in just 2:17 of ice time! — before eventually leaving the game.
Nylander later acknowledged he couldn’t remember the last time he had missed that much time and said the priority was making sure the re-aggravated injury was fully healed rather than continuing to play through it. Ultimately, he appeared in just 65 games — his fewest in a full NHL season since the contractual dispute shortened his 2018-19 campaign. For a player who has been such a constant in the lineup throughout his career, the stops and starts were yet another unusual element of an altogether odd and disjointed season in Toronto.
Early in the year, we noted the strange dichotomy around Nylander: He was sitting near the top of the league in scoring, yet within roughly a week, Berube publicly said the Leafs “needed more” from him — specifically more attacking, shooting, and getting to the inside — before Stolarz called him out following the overtime loss to Seattle. Some of the early production overstated how well Nylander was actually playing — there were empty-net points mixed in, his five-on-five involvement wasn’t always where it could be, and there was clearly another level available from him.
After an overtime loss to Seattle, Stolarz publicly criticized Nylander for his sequence on the deciding three-on-three sequence. When we broke the play down afterward, we thought the criticism of Nylander on that specific play was a little unfair. Nylander could have handled it better, but there was plenty of blame to go around, and isolating him as the culprit oversimplified what actually happened.
It was also debatable whether Stolarz really had the standing to make those comments publicly in the first place, and he certainly didn’t follow them up with the type of season you’d want to see from a player who publicly called out one of the team’s stars and challenged the whole team to be better.
At the same time, it is probably reasonable to assume Stolarz wasn’t reacting to one isolated shift in a vacuum. If a teammate is frustrated enough to publicly single out a star player — rightly or wrongly — there is probably some accumulated frustration behind it. Stolarz himself ultimately acknowledged that he regretted handling the situation publicly and that it should have remained in the dressing room. Nylander apparently responded well, and there was no indication of any lasting issue between them.
Still, the episode fit into a larger theme surrounding Nylander’s season.
There were repeated moments when his engagement appeared to fluctuate. There were poor backchecks and casual plays with the puck. There was the 11-game goalless drought later in December. His minus-14 rating was the worst of his NHL career.
We shouldn’t make too much of the latter number in isolation. The Leafs were a bad team — John Tavares finished minus-28; Matthew Knies was minus-30 — and spent huge portions of the season playing a brutal brand of hockey with a depleted lineup before quitting on the year altogether. Nylander’s underlying results were hardly disastrous relative to his teammates. But anyone who watched Nylander throughout the year also knows there were plenty of nights when he simply wasn’t at the level the team needed him to be.
Notably, Nylander is no longer the talented young player whose bouts of immaturity or inconsistency we can laugh off or wave away with the expectation that he’ll eventually grow out of them. He turned 30 years old in May.
Reminders of a little bit of lingering immaturity showed up off the ice. While injured in January, Nylander flipped off a television camera from the press box, creating a completely unnecessary story during an already chaotic Leafs season. He apologized the following day and explained that he was frustrated about not playing.
It was hardly a major scandal, and the Toronto media predictably blew it out of proportion. But it was also the kind of needless incident you would rather not be discussing with a veteran star who is supposed to be one of the pillars of the organization.
And then there was the apparent disconnect between Nylander and Craig Berube. There were multiple visible moments of frustration between the two, including a tense interaction on the bench early in the season. Later, when Nylander finally ended his aforementioned 11-game goalless drought, we noted how noticeably off his body language appeared despite scoring.
We obviously can’t know exactly what was happening behind closed doors, and it would be unfair to attribute every poor stretch or moment of frustration to the relationship between player and coach. But by the end of Berube’s tenure, it was fair to question whether the two were ever truly on the same page. How much of it was on each party individually is tough to say; it’s understandable if Berube wanted more buy-in out of Nylander in some regards, but it’s also understandable if Nylander lost faith in Berube’s direction.
Berube ultimately deservedly lost his job, and we argued throughout the season—early and often—that the coaching staff was not putting the roster in the best position to succeed. That context matters when evaluating Nylander’s season, and it also means the coaching change removes one variable entering 2026-27. It’s quite possible Jim Hiller and Nylander will jive more seamlessly.
There is also the matter of the Leafs’ response after Radko Gudas’ knee-on-knee hit ended Auston Matthews’ season. Nylander was on the ice when it happened — he and a rookie teammate (Easton Cowan) were the closest Leafs to it — and like the rest of the group, there was no immediate response.
We won’t single Nylander out for that; Brandon Carlo was the player we were most disappointed in on the sequence given his size, role, and history of being on the ice for similar incidents, and the Leafs had a larger, longstanding problem responding appropriately in these situations. But Nylander is also one of the most important players and de facto leaders on the team. He didn’t need to drop the gloves himself, but he needed to get in there and help spark the team’s immediate response rather than throw his arm up toward the officials looking for a call.
For a group whose season repeatedly raised questions about collective engagement and togetherness, it was another moment where we needed to see more from the players who are supposed to set the tone.
The Leafs did eventually respond to the incident and played with considerably more edge in the rematch in Anaheim. By then, Nylander’s line with Tavares and Easton Cowan was also producing some strong results, which is a data point to keep in mind when drawing up possible line combinations for next season (the trio outscored opponents 13-7 at five-on-five).
The fit also made sense stylistically. Cowan and Nylander could both transport the puck and drive play off the wings, helping an aging Tavares spend more of his shifts in the offensive zone and allowing him to focus on what he still does extremely well: finding soft areas, winning battles, and getting to scoring areas. We saw enough chemistry between Cowan and Nylander over the course of the season to believe there might be something worth revisiting there.
Is it time to reunite Matthews and Nylander?
As Anthony Petrielli recently explored in more detail, there is a real argument that Jim Hiller should put his two best offensive players together more often this season.
Hiller has some history/familiarity to draw on here. During his previous three seasons in Toronto, Matthews and Nylander played 1,342 five-on-five minutes together. Only Zach Hyman spent more time alongside Matthews over that span (for comparison, Mitch Marner played fewer than 144 five-on-five minutes with Matthews during those three seasons).
More importantly, Matthews and Nylander didn’t simply play together; they dominated. The Leafs outscored opponents 76-47 at five-on-five with the two on the ice together, accounting for nearly 62 percent of the goals scored.
The Leafs tried Matthews and Nylander together at times last season, and it didn’t really work. They finished at 13-13 in five-on-five goals, and loading the two of them onto one line left the rest of an already-thin forward group looking awfully shallow.
There is at least a plausible path to avoiding that problem now. The Leafs could prove to be one established, productive top-nine forward short, but if Gavin McKenna and/or Easton Cowan establish themselves as legitimate top-six forwards, the Leafs suddenly have more freedom to stack their stars. Rather than immediately asking an 18-year-old McKenna to play on the first line against top competition, for example, they could potentially shelter him on a scoring line with Tavares while asking Matthews and Nylander to drive the top unit.
There is a pretty simple philosophical argument behind it as well: Most teams play their best center with their best winger.
Matthews and Nylander will combine to make nearly $25 million next season. It isn’t unreasonable to ask them to play together, take on significant minutes, and tilt the ice. There will naturally be concerns about whether Nylander’s defensive game is suited to the difficult head-to-head assignments Matthews receives, but as Anthony wrote, plenty of elite offensive wingers around the league who aren’t exactly defensive stalwarts play those minutes beside their teams’ top centers and can reasonably handle the matchup attention that naturally comes their way.
The other half of the equation is Hiller’s implied intention to change the way Matthews is used. Matthews played extraordinarily difficult minutes last season, often without anything resembling a high-end right winger beside him. The offseason additions of Nick Paul, Colton Sissons, Teddy Blueger, and Brandon Duhaime should theoretically give Hiller checking line options he can actually trust with some of that workload. Hiller has also talked specifically about getting Matthews back to possessing the puck more, attacking with it, playing more creatively, and generally “celebrating offense” again.
Putting Nylander beside him would certainly qualify. It doesn’t have to be permanent, and the Cowan-Tavares-Nylander possibility — among other napkin line ideas — provide compelling alternatives. But after a season in which Matthews spent too much time grinding through difficult assignments with middling linemates, there is an obvious argument for simplifying things: Give the team’s best center its best winger, use the hopefully improved bottom six to absorb more of the checking burden, and see if two players who have dominated together before can do it again.
Expectations for William Nylander in 2026-27
The Leafs do not need Nylander to suddenly become a Selke candidate or transform his personality. Part of what makes him great is his composure with the puck, his ability to play at his own pace, and the almost casual manner in which he can dismantle defenses.
There is a similar quality to the way he carries himself off the ice. Nylander is very self-assured, sometimes to the point where it can strike people as aloof. In this market, though, that is probably a net positive, even if the perception can shift quickly depending on the on-ice results. He generally doesn’t seem to stress about the noise surrounding the team, ride the emotional roller coaster, or let outside criticism change how he views himself or his game. That has real value, particularly in Toronto, where every slump, mistake, or emotional quote can quickly become a much bigger story.
In many ways, that unflappability is one of Nylander’s biggest strengths. We don’t want him suddenly gripping the stick because he hasn’t scored in five games or becoming consumed by whatever is being said about him outside the room. Trying to coach that quality out of him would be counterproductive.
But there is a difference between being calm/confident and being overly casual. There is a difference between being unaffected by the noise and occasionally appearing unaffected by what is happening on the ice.
That is the balance Nylander needs to strike at this stage of his career. The self-assuredness and composure are assets. The moments when they bleed into prolonged disengagement are not.
At the same time, we have to be realistic about what Nylander is at this point. He is 30 years old and has played over 800 NHL games between the regular season and playoffs. Certain aspects of his game will probably always frustrate us to some degree. The engagement will waver at times. There will be defensive details that leave you wanting more. There will be the occasional fly-by, casual backcheck, or shift where you wonder why a player with his tools and God-given talent isn’t imposing himself on the game more.
If we’re waiting for all of that to disappear from Nylander’s game, we’re probably going to die waiting. But it doesn’t need to disappear completely for Nylander to be an enormously valuable player. The offensive production speaks for itself; we know he can score 40+ goals and 90+ points. We know he can take over games and look like one of the most dangerous offensive players in the league.
At 30 years old, entering year three of an eight-year contract worth $11.5 million annually, Nylander should also be one of the players setting the standard inside the organization. That doesn’t necessarily mean wearing a letter or becoming the loudest voice in the dressing room. Leadership can take different forms, and Nylander’s personality is never going to resemble that of some stereotypical rah-rah veteran leader.
But it does mean understanding that his actions carry more weight now. It means no unnecessary distractions like the press-box incident. It means maintaining his engagement when the team is struggling or when his own production dries up. It means recognizing moments like the Gudas hit and understanding when the temperature of a game demands a response. And, most importantly, it means continuing to be one of the players who wants the puck and can make the difference when the Leafs desperately need someone to step up.
The organization has undergone significant change around Nylander, but he remains one of its foundational pieces alongside Matthews, as new GM John Chayka referenced and expressed confidence in. Clearly, he is no longer part of the younger generation trying to establish itself within the team’s leadership hierarchy. He is the second-longest-tenured Leaf, their second-highest-paid player, and now, officially, a player in his 30s.
There will always be a little give-and-take with the William Nylander experience. There will be nights when the defensive engagement frustrates us, followed by nights when he takes over a game in a way only a handful of players in the league can.
The Leafs don’t need the former to disappear completely to have success. They need the balance to continue shifting in the right direction.
Nylander has already proven he can be an elite offensive player and a big-moment performer. At this stage of his career, the challenge is pairing those qualities with greater maturity and a more consistent understanding of his responsibility as one of the Leafs’ leaders.
