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William Nylander appreciation thread

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Hockey 4 Life said:
Both regular season and playoff numbers are factored into a players value. Willys production is very good in both, but him showing a lack of caring isn't the same as a slump. If he could just work through these dips in season he'd be right there with Matty and Mitch. I just want willy to be the best player he can be for the team and himself.
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Sure, I'm just saying that for me personally, if he excels in the playoffs then I don't much care whether he gets 60 or 100 points during the regular season.
 
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The second line needs a jolt. When Kase is ready why not put him on the first line with Matthews and Bunting. Matthews can carry that line. That would leave a fairly powerful second line of Styles, Marner and Pajama boy. Trade for a 3C and let Kampf play 4c and kill penalties as he has done rather well all season.

If Kase is slow in returning why not try Robertson on the first line? He has speed and a decent shot.
 
therealkoho said:
Lindholm or Fowler

Rakell or Henrique
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You are kidding right?

a ufa and a middle piece for a top line player?

my targets from those three teams you asked would be:

anaheim
Gibson, Terry, SIGNED Lindholm

Arizona
Chychurn crousse kessel

Dallas
No one
Klingberg brings nothing that we don’t already have, pavelski is a ufa no bueno

so unless we are doing nylander + 1st + 3rd for Chychurn + Kessel@50 + Crousse@50

or

Nylander for
Gibson or Lindholm signed to a team friendly deal + one top 6 player they have

we should not be looking at dealing him no matter what.
 
Menzinger said:
I think folks in here are reading too much into facial expressions on tv.

He's definitely earned criticism for his play as of late, but suggesting the guy outright doesn't care seems a bit too far
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This ... People have short memories considering he played his ass off last year in that Montreal series.
 
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therealkoho said:
hard to lead a guy who looks like he'd rather be anywhere else half the time, what would JT have to do different that Willie would get excited enough to do the things that he's getting paid for, you know score goals, back check, win pucks along the boards and in corners, go and jam in the blue paint 6'1" 210 he's built to do those things, he has almost as much individual skill as Marner has, yet he sometimes seems less effective than Simmonds, less skilled than Kerfoot and not possessing much more footspeed than JT, but yet is one of the fastest Leafs, who happens to have skills coming out of his ying yang.
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If I were Nylander, I'd have a pretty hard time going full tilt on the attack only to have to wait three steamboats for the centerman to show up or try to initiate a give and go only to realize when you pass to Tavares he ends up stuck in an area and completely swarmed by defenders. Since Tavares' big year playing with Marner, I have a hard time thinking of a single Leaf he has consistently brought to a higher level.

At the end of the day, the second line has zero chemistry. When they have Kerfoot on there, they have two guys who want to go play the rush game and the other plays a hard, painful grind game. Put Nylander with guys who can fly and put Tavares with guys who want to live in the corners, tight spaces and grind it out.
 
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Stephen said:
If I were Nylander, I'd have a pretty hard time going full tilt on the attack only to have to wait three steamboats for the centerman to show up or try to initiate a give and go only to realize when you pass to Tavares he ends up stuck in an area and completely swarmed by defenders. Since Tavares' big year playing with Marner, I have a hard time thinking of a single Leaf he has consistently brought to a higher level.

At the end of the day, the second line has zero chemistry. When they have Kerfoot on there, they have two guys who want to go play the rush game and the other plays a hard, painful grind game. Put Nylander with guys who can fly and put Tavares with guys who want to live in the corners, tight spaces and grind it out.
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I dont know why Keefe went away from splitting the two guys up so fast. It’s like he only went with it for a period or so in that game a few weeks back. There’s enough quality middle 6 guys you could build 2 good lines around JT & Willy.
Mik JT Kase
Robertson kerf Willy
Engvall kampf spezz/Simmonds
Heck wih muzzin in ltir there’s room to bring guys like Joey Anderson & Alex Steeves up and give them a look on that 4th line wing, and rest the vets who frankly both looked cooked as of late. If Robertson isn’t up to it find a LW to play with JT and slide mik down either with Willy and Kerfoot or on the 4th if the depth allows it.
 
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Aashir Mallick said:
You are kidding right?

a ufa and a middle piece for a top line player?

my targets from those three teams you asked would be:

anaheim
Gibson, Terry, SIGNED Lindholm

Arizona
Chychurn crousse kessel

Dallas
No one
Klingberg brings nothing that we don’t already have, pavelski is a ufa no bueno

so unless we are doing nylander + 1st + 3rd for Chychurn + Kessel@50 + Crousse@50

or

Nylander for
Gibson or Lindholm signed to a team friendly deal + one top 6 player they have

we should not be looking at dealing him no matter what.
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you do know the Leafs are in an even bigger cash crunch next year don't you?
 
BertCorbeau said:
This ... People have short memories considering he played his ass off last year in that Montreal series.
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Yeah he sure did, as hot as he's ever been, but what was he doing different that brought that stretch on? He was winning puck battles and races, being first in on the forecheck coming back into his own end and going after pucks, going to the blue paint, playing with real verve and a willingness to engage. I've always said that he's extremely talented there are no doubts about that and I know it's really tough to be on for all 82, although I can name you a hundred players and maybe more who stay on as long as they're healthy. Let's just say he comes out of this most recent funk tonight and goes on a red hot 22 game tear 12G 11A, which would bring us to game 76 and put Willie at 33G 39A, and then he goes into another 12 game nose dive, because that's his pattern and he's never seemed to be able to avoid these prolonged funks at any point of his professional career up to this date.

For whatever reason Willie can't seem to sustain that kind of will, to continue to excel at the level he's capable of. I don't want to belabour the point, but in that game vs Buffalo one little play and it wasn't the only one exemplifies his current level of effort. JT was digging a puck out in the left corner from the Sabres net, Kerfoot was 10 feet away up the side boards and Willie was about 12 feet away on the end boards. Both wingmen pretty much where they're supposed to be, JT got the puck out to Willie and he just watched it go by, no effort at all to pick it up, control it and try to construct a play. The Sabre Dman picked up the gift and and reversed behind his own net and got the puck up the boards. I'm pretty sure Keefe sat 88 for a couple of shifts after that, and I can't imagine his team-mates who were watching this were very happy with the effort. It's the kind of thing that engender negative feelings which are dangerous in a dressing room and can split a team apart.
 
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therealkoho said:
you do know the Leafs are in an even bigger cash crunch next year don't you?
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And your solution is to trade the lowest cap hit of the big 4 for rentals?

I don’t think trading the core player who has the best chance of out producing his contract for peanuts is smart. He’s signed for 2 years after this.

if nylander is getting dealt, it’s only for A top pairing dman with term.
 
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After Nylanders 3.5 million bonus on July 1st 2022, he is owed 2.5 million for next year. Then 3.5 bonus and 2.5 salary following year, thats 8.5 million for 2 years of Nylander. That could fetch a nice return. The only risk is if Nylander one day starts to compete at 100% effort, the Leafs might lose that trade....but Im not worried about that. Nylander is not wired to compete hard every game.
 
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mapleleaf979 said:
After Nylanders 3.5 million bonus on July 1st 2022, he is owed 2.5 million for next year. Then 3.5 bonus and 2.5 salary following year, thats 8.5 million for 2 years of Nylander. That could fetch a nice return. The only risk is if Nylander one day starts to compete at 100% effort, the Leafs might lose that trade....but Im not worried about that. Nylander is not wired to compete hard every game.
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I don't think there's much chance of him becoming consistently engaged elsewhere. He's shown it's just not his thing. His contract year is likely to see a spike but i would expect it to be temporary. Another first round loss must result in changes and Willy is one of the less painful, yet more valuable pieces to facilitate a change. There would of course need to be more changes than that if whomever is in charge opts to commit to changing the teams identity but Nylander could open talks on impact players most of the others could not.
 
Nylanderthal said:
Don’t really see it, plenty of movable cash around the edges and all the core pieces locked in aside from in net.
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Mrazek signed, whoopee who else? Morgans' due a big raise, they're going to need a Mikheyev replacement, because somebody is going to offer him more than the Leafs want to pay. They need a LW for line 2, Kerfoot doesn't really have the offensive chops to stay there.

So there is going to be a crunch
 
therealkoho said:
Mrazek signed, whoopee who else? Morgans' due a big raise, they're going to need a Mikheyev replacement, because somebody is going to offer him more than the Leafs want to pay. They need a LW for line 2, Kerfoot doesn't really have the offensive chops to stay there.

So there is going to be a crunch
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Ufa/guys who we expect/wouldn’t be stunned if moved:
Mrazek 3.8 Campbell 1.65 mikheyev 1.645 dermott 1.5 Holl 2.0 Kerfoot 3.5 = $14m
Riellys raise is 300k short of being entirely baked in to the $1m cap raise and the 1.2m kessel retention.
Kase Engvall probably get their QO’s or just above, Sandin and Liljegren get bridged somewhere around dermott dough for 2-3 years. So let’s call it 12m left over from that 14m
Bunting Matthews Marner
Xx Tavares Nylander
Engvall Kampf Kase
Xx Spezza Simmonds

Rielly Brodie
Muzzin xx
Sandin Liljegren

Starter
Backup
You have young guys like Robertson Steeves Anderson SDA Rubins Kral Woll as potential cheap depth/hole fillers.
League min/ELC for the 4th line. Looks like there’s 11-11.5 depending how the above contracts work out for a middle 6 winger, a top4 D and a goalie tandem. If one of Robertson is ready to fill a middle 6 role or Liljegren can handle a #4 work load it’s actually quite a bit of money to work with, if neither then it’s gonna be a little tight, but still doable.
Like with every team against the cap choices are going to have to be made wrt to best allocation of cap dollars, but it’s not like they’re Minnesota staring down the barrel of a massive cap hit on buyouts or Vancouver coming out of a bunch of medium dollar anchors while having a cap hit on them for Lu
 
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mapleleaf979 said:
After Nylanders 3.5 million bonus on July 1st 2022, he is owed 2.5 million for next year. Then 3.5 bonus and 2.5 salary following year, thats 8.5 million for 2 years of Nylander. That could fetch a nice return. The only risk is if Nylander one day starts to compete at 100% effort, the Leafs might lose that trade....but Im not worried about that. Nylander is not wired to compete hard every game.
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You can bet he will beat our ass every time he plays us. That alone is enough reason to keep him. LOL!
 
Curious if this says anything, it kind of stands out as objectively noteworthy.
EC321165-9AE6-4857-AD4E-BBEE9AE1A396.jpeg
 
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ACC1224 said:
Looks like he's accidentally bumped into 8 guys over the course of the year. I'm sure he apologized for it.
That's like a daily total for those that ride the subway. :laugh:
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When you see a guy like Kase with concussion history making hits, it’s a bad look.
 
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