The Maple Leafs have plenty to sort out, but William Nylander’s preseason slide in NHL Network’s Top 50 is the kind of detail that can make you pause.
Nylander landed at No. 32 on the list, down from No. 19 a year ago. That’s a notable dip for a player who has been one of the league’s most dangerous wingers, a three-time 40-goal scorer and, at his best, one of the most electric scorers in hockey.
The ranking itself is eyebrow-raising. Nylander checked in behind Cole Caufield, who scored 50 goals, and ahead of Mark Scheifele, who posted 100 points, along with stars such as Artemi Panarin and Sebastian Aho.
On paper, it still places him among elite company. But for a player with Nylander’s track record, the drop naturally invites bigger questions about where his game is headed next.
He turns 30 this season, and that alone is enough to get people looking for signs of decline. It doesn’t mean he’s suddenly old, but it does put the spotlight on whether any downturn has begun.
If it has, the bigger question is how steep it might be. Is this the start of a real slide, or something more manageable that still leaves him as a dependable 30-goal threat for years?
A lot of that will get answered this season, and the coaching change matters.
Nylander, like Auston Matthews, did not seem to thrive under Craig Berube. The team’s defensive, grind-it-out approach didn’t exactly suit Toronto’s most gifted offensive players.
Still, Nylander found a way to produce. He scored 45 goals in 2024-25 and 30 in 65 games last season, and even with injury issues, he finished with a team-high 79 points.
That’s the part that should keep the concern from turning into panic. Nylander was still very much the difference-maker the Leafs need him to be.
Now comes Jim Hiller, and that could be a much better fit. He’s not as freewheeling as Sheldon Keefe was, but he should give Nylander and Matthews more room to operate. If Nylander gets that freedom again, another 40-goal season is hardly a wild idea.
The biggest threat to that kind of production is another injury-riddled year. But after a full summer to recover, there’s reason to believe he should enter the season in better shape physically.
And there’s the motivation factor, too. Nylander has something to prove, along with the rest of the group.
That alone could push him toward a 100-point season. It may sound aggressive, but there’s enough here to think William Nylander could still deliver it.
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Still, Marner left room for a familiar Toronto connection when he spoke about Darren Raddysh, the Toronto-born defenseman the Leafs added in a sign-and-trade. It was a small but notable nod from a player whose departure remains one of the franchises defining storylines, and it only adds another layer to a summer that already has Maple Leafs fans watching every move closely. [Read more 🡒]
Maple Leafs Suddenly Have An Early Max Domi Problem
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Jack Hughes Just Reopened An Ugly Maple Leafs Debate
Jack Hughes added an awkward little footnote to Torontos summer at NHL Media Day, and it landed on a topic the Maple Leafs would probably prefer to leave buried. His comment about the Leafs and the draft reopened a long-running argument around a season that went sideways, one in which Toronto missed the playoffs and finished last in its division, yet still sat in a draft position that reflected how rough the overall picture had become.
The uncomfortable part for the Leafs is that the debate is not as simple as record versus reward. Toronto did not finish near the very bottom of the league, but it was still among the 11 worst teams and carried the fifth-best lottery odds, which made a high pick a reasonable outcome even without a nightmare standings finish. Hughes did not settle the argument so much as remind everyone how messy it got, and why the Leafs are still the kind of team that can spark a fight over whether they were too good to be there or not good enough to avoid it. [Read more 🡒]