I agree. Really enjoyed watching the Leafs this year. They have grown since last year. They played a great series. It could have gone their way. Their core is great. They gave Tamp fits.
I thought Nylander was great in this series. Doesn’t deserve to be made a scapegoat.
Nylander was great in 2 games this series.
He was also invisible in 3 games including game 7.
The reason people jumped all over Marner last year was that it looked like he wasn't trying out there.
The reason this fanbase loves players like Hyman, Tucker, Domi, Roberts, Clark, and the like is not that they are/were world beaters, it's because they never cheated us on effort.
When he's going, when he is engaged and skating hard, Nylander is a phenomenal player. We don't expect good defense from him, we don't expect him to turn into Hatcher either, but we expect him to push the other team back on their heels with his speed and great movement on the puck.
Other than the shift he was held up on going into a breakaway (a blatant missed call to be honest), Nylander didn't look interested in the play for all of game 7.
Game 1, 2, and 7 he was terrible.
Games 5 and 6 he was great.
A core player that is either great or terrible and almost never anywhere in between is hard to swallow. If the ratio of bad to great is 1:1 then I can't rely on that guy to be a core player making 7 million.