Well the Matthews-Marner line should certainly at least be the one part of the structure that should be soundly in place, so when they fail why is Nylander's defensive game suddenly so important?
William Nylander
- Thread starter Ianturnedbull
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M&M ain't doing nearly what they should be doing in the playoffs buddy.
This is the very first year Nylander is finally in their pay grade, all the other years he was paid significantly less. Your misplaced blame continues to look sillier and sillier. Atleast this year if they bomb out your criticisms will finally have some validity eh?
Marner reminds me of the kid playing shortstop, but has to run all over the infield to try and make plays. Being a defensive winger is easy, especially when you hang out with your own defenceman most of the time in the offensive zone
It's crazy all the excuses that gets put up for Nylander.
As the 2nd highest paid player he should be held to a much higher standard.
Yeah go ahead and completely miss the point again before you peace out
I'm pretty confident I conveyed my stance well. As I said - if we bomb out again this year go ahead and go stir crazy on the Willy critcisims since he's finally paid at M&M 's level.
Anyone with eyeballs can see how many of the Leafs forwards, including Marner, Matthews, and JT, cheat for offence (Nylander is more noticeable because he's faster and more successful), which is a large part of why the defence struggles to clear the zone.
I think few would ever claim Nylander is great defensively, he certainly won't ever be nominated for a Selke, but the narrative around his poor defensive play reaches absurd levels of exaggeration. As you rightly point out, most star wingers are very much one-way offensive first players, with the odd exception like Hossa.
The coaches are lucky that Nylander doesn't ever let ego disrupt plans to move him around the lineup - doesn't complain about needing to play with specific linemates, just goes out there and makes things happen with what he's given
