The Maple Leafs may have quietly solved one of their biggest lineup questions by adding enough centre depth to keep William Nylander exactly where he does his best work: on the wing.
For a while, there was a real path to Toronto needing Nylander down the middle. With Max Domi out, Calle Jarnkrok now a free agent, and only a thin mix of rookies and AHL talent available for the 2026-27 season, the Leafs could have been forced to use him at centre on the second line, slide John Tavares down, or even drop Nylander to the third line to give the group a spark.
That’s no small thing, because Nylander can handle himself there better than most wingers. He’s won nearly 50% of his face-offs and has taken more than 1,000 in his career.
But that’s not really the point with him. His game is built on speed, agility and lightning-quick hands, the kind of tools that create separation and turn ordinary shifts into breakaway chances.
Toronto’s new centre options change that equation.
Nick Paul, Colton Sissons and Teddy Blueger can all handle the middle and help cover for Nylander this year, while Jack Roslovic can fill in if needed. It’s the kind of depth that lets the Leafs do what they’ve clearly wanted to do: lean into offence and trust the support pieces to handle the dirty work.
That matters for Nylander because forcing him to play centre comes with a cost. He has to spend more time defending, more time thinking the game backward, and less time doing the thing that makes him dangerous. Craig Berube tried to push him toward a more defensively responsible style and expected more work from him, and that created plenty of tension between the two.
Nylander is at his best when he’s free to attack. He brings swagger to the lineup, and when he’s boxed into a more defensive role, that edge gets muted.
So the Leafs giving him essentially no defensive burden this season - at least in the bigger picture - makes a lot of sense. He won’t be on the penalty kill, and while he’ll still start in the defensive zone sometimes because of icings and random shifts in the flow of play, that won’t be the center of his job description. With him likely lining up next to John Tavares and Easton Cowan for now, Toronto can let its top playmakers do what they do best.
The numbers back up the idea that Nylander belongs on the outside. From 2021-2023, he took 256 face-offs total.
Over the last two seasons, that number was 234. Some of that comes down to the usual in-game chaos - icings, waved-off centres and the like - but his real value is tied to offence, not faceoff duty.
He finished last season in the 94th percentile in maximum skating speed, which is exactly why the wing suits him so well. Put him in the middle and you take away some of the runway that helps him explode into open ice. Keep him wide, and his transition game, shot and pace all have room to breathe.
Nylander already showed last season that he can pile up goals in a hurry, and he could have reached another 40-goal season with a chance to push toward 50. The key is getting him the puck in motion, with defensive-centre types like Paul and Blueger helping clean things up and find him in space. Even the idea of a quick switch after a face-off - the kind where a winger jumps in and out almost immediately - fits the kind of flexibility Toronto can use around him.
That’s the bottom line here: Nylander is most dangerous when he has room. Give him more ice, more freedom and fewer defensive chores, and the Leafs are betting on a version of him that can do serious damage.
For Toronto, that’s the whole point. For the rest of the NHL, it’s a problem.
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The Leafs have a crowded center pipeline and not much flexibility to work with, which makes Millers situation more complicated than a simple formality. If Toronto cannot fit him into its plans, the organization could be left trying to hold onto a drafted prospect it has followed for years, and the clock on that choice is already running. [Read more 🡒]