With Auston Matthews dealing with a nagging injury, chances are there’ll be a new leading scorer for the Toronto Maple Leafs to end the season. Not only could there be a new leading scorer on the team, but potentially a new 50-goal scorer too. In the last three seasons, the Maple Leafs had two instances where a player scored at least 50 times. Both those instances were by Matthews and he scored 60 goals in the 2021-22 season and 69 goals last season. However, William Nylander got next.
Nylander On Pace To Pot 50 Goals
Nylander picked up where he left off last season in his contract year. Right now, the numbers prove that he is one of the best scorers and wingers in the NHL. Going into Toronto’s game against the Detroit Red Wings on Friday, Nylander has 23 goals in 35 games. These totals put Nylander on pace to score 53 goals by the end of the season. He’s tied for second among the NHL’s leading goalscorers alongside Kirill Kaprizov of the Minnesota Wild. Nylander only sits behind Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers, who has 24 goals in 34 games played. These totals put Nylander on pace to score 53 goals by the end of the season.
The Swede also sits in the top 20 point-scorers in the NHL with 40 on the year thus far. With each passing season, Nylander has gradually improved in the points department. In the 2021-22 season, he put up 80 points. A year later, he averaged over a point per game for the first time in his career, scoring 87 points in 82 games. Then came the contract year, where he ultimately had a career year for the Maple Leafs. Nylander was two points shy of 100 with 40 goals and 58 assists and finished 10th in league scoring.
In his previous nine seasons in the NHL, Nylander has never led the Maple Leafs in scoring. Since entering the league, Toronto’s leading point scorers have always been Matthews or Mitch Marner. The only season where Matthews or Marner didn’t lead the team in scoring was before they entered the league in 2015-16. That was Nylander’s rookie campaign and Nazem Kadri led the Leafs in scoring that season with 45 points in 76 games. Marner currently leads Toronto with 46 points, six more than Nylander.
Realistic Candidate For The Rocket Richard Trophy?
At the time Nylander was drafted eighth overall in 2014, he was classified as a playmaker in this league. For almost his whole career so far, he’s had more assists than goals. While that’s typical for most players in the NHL, Nylander behaved like a playmaker in his early years too. However, this season, the 28-year-old has transformed himself into a goalscorer and a sniper. Before this campaign, he scored 40 goals in back-to-back seasons. Since the 2022-23 season, Nylander has the 10th most goals of all players in the NHL. If Nylander is one of the first players to reach the 40-goal mark again this season, he’ll become the 100th player to score 40 goals three times.
Matthews has been a household name when it comes to the Rocket Richard Trophy. However, because of his constant injury, there’s a good chance there’ll be a new winner of the award this season. Although there could be a new winner, that doesn’t mean it will be awarded outside of the Maple Leafs. As mentioned, Nylander is just one goal shy of Draisaitl who leads the league. Meaning, the chances of Nylander winning that award are substantially higher than in seasons prior.
Nylander leads the Maple Leafs in goals, which has never happened in his career. He has a healthy six-goal lead on John Tavares, After that it’s Matthews and Matthew Knies with 11 goals and Marner with 10. If Nylander went on to win the Rocket Richard Trophy, he’d be the first-ever Swede to claim the award.
Main Photo Credit: Dan Hamilton-Imagn Images
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