The William Nylander Game 1 mystery: Analyzing the Maple Leafs’ lineup with and without him

BOSTON — Shades on, hoodie up, William Nylander walked into Warrior Ice Arena in Boston alongside his teammates on Friday afternoon.

He didn’t join them on the ice for practice. And the Leafs aren’t saying much about his status, only that Nylander is a “possibility” to play in Game 1 on Saturday.

Head coach Sheldon Keefe also said Bobby McMann, who hasn’t practiced or played since he was injured on April 13, is a possibility to play so take that for what it’s worth.

Keefe declined to say much at all on Nylander’s status otherwise, other than to suggest that the team wasn’t prepared to reveal much of anything in the playoffs about injuries or lineups under the direction of GM Brad Treliving.

“(Brad) has made it very clear to me: There’s not gonna be any daily injury updates or anything like that,” Keefe said.

The Leafs obviously don’t want the Bruins to know if Nylander will play, though his absence at the last practice before Game 1 suggests he’s a question mark.

For what reason exactly is uncertain.

The fact that Nylander was in the building at all suggests he wasn’t dealing with an illness. Otherwise, why not keep him back at the hotel to rest? An injury of some kind seems likelier, perhaps something that popped up in one of the final two games of the regular season. (I spoke to Nylander on Monday and he was fine and in good spirits.)

Nylander was on the ice for the waning minutes of regulation in game No. 82 on Wednesday, part of the effort to help Auston Matthews chase down his 70th goal of the season, an effort that ultimately came up short.

Keefe declined to provide any clarification on Nylander’s status. (Was it disciplinary?)

The Leafs have had to play without Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Morgan Rielly at times in recent years, but they’ve always had Nylander. He played in all 82 games this season, all 82 last season, and 81-of-82 the season before that.

He hasn’t missed any real time at all with injuries.

Nylander was sidelined five games during the 2020-21 season when he was in COVID-19 protocol. He played in 68-of-70 the previous season (missing two for illness), all 82 as a sophomore, and 81 as a rookie. He missed the first half of the 2018-19 season to a contract dispute.

Nylander has rarely missed time with the Leafs. (Michael Chisholm / NHLI via Getty Images)

Will he play in Game 1? Will he play in this series? It’s hard to assume anything with so little information. Crucially, how do the Leafs adjust without their second-best player from the regular season, someone who slumped down the stretch but still put up a career-best 98 points?

The Leafs’ biggest advantage over the Bruins is in the high-end skill department. Not having Nylander around lessens that advantage and puts even more pressure on Matthews and Marner to produce. Their postseason performances to this point have been underwhelming. Nylander has arguably outplayed them both at this time of the year, as well as John Tavares. Not having him available would be a big blow to the Leafs and their chances.

Nylander is the team’s most dangerous shooter after Matthews, one of their top puck carriers, and their best dual-threat option offensively, someone who can pass the puck and shoot it and put all kinds of pressure on foes with his speed and skill.

Keefe suggested the Leafs hadn’t made any lineup decisions (keeping in line with the “say nothing” policy), but they practiced Friday the way they would undoubtedly play without Nylander. That’s with Calle Järnkrok sliding into Nylander’s spot on a line with Pontus Holmberg and Nick Robertson as well as into his role (though not his exact position) on the Leafs’ No. 1 power-play unit. (Marner occupied Nylander’s spot on the right flank of PP1 at practice. Järnkrok moved into Marner’s spot down by the net. Tavares occupied the bumpier position.)

Game 1 will be Järnkrok’s first since March 14. He should be in the lineup regardless of Nylander’s status. Nick Robertson’s inclusion, on the other hand, would seem to be dependent on Nylander’s availability. If Nylander plays, Robertson, in all likelihood, doesn’t.

Robertson scored six goals in his final 15 games of the regular season. But minus Nylander on that third line, the notion of a spread attack (three stars, three lines) goes out the window. The Leafs would essentially have two top lines and two fourth lines, more or less.

They would be (almost) entirely dependent on the Matthews’ and Tavares’ units to produce offence. Those two groups have enough weaponry to make it work.

Max Domi found Marner-like chemistry with Matthews when Keefe plugged him in there in March. That line, with Bertuzzi on left wing, was borderline unstoppable for the Leafs, though the challenge for them gets much harder from here: The Bruins are teaming up Charlie McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm, their two best defenders (and two of the better defenders in the league), for presumed Matthews’ line duty. (McAvoy played primarily with the not-quite-as-stout Matt Grzelcyk during the regular season.)

The gambit makes sense: Boston had no answer for Matthews during the regular season, on defence or up front with the Charlie Coyle line.

In the nearly 34 minutes that Matthews was on the ice against Coyle, shots were 26-7 for the Leafs. Shots were 19-3 for the Leafs in Matthews’ 23-plus minutes opposite McAvoy.

And while the Marner-Tavares combo has been hit or miss since the last time these two teams met in the playoffs (Marner, Tavares, and Zach Hyman formed the team’s most dangerous line back in 2019), there were some signs of chemistry brewing again late in the season.

Yet, things will be a lot more challenging for that group as well starting in Game 1 as the Tavares line figures to primarily match up against David Pastrnak’s unit, which also includes the hard and heavy combo of Pavel Zacha and Danton Heinen.

Pastrnak’s 58 five-on-five points ranked sixth in the NHL.

The Leafs will need their No. 2 line to both stop, or merely slow down, Pastrnak and create offence to supplement what the Matthews’ line brings.

With or without Nylander, the Tavares group was going to get the Pastrnak assignment – though the Leafs had been rolling out a star-stuffed Nylander-Tavares-Marner combo recently that was wreaking havoc. That threesome has the potential to tilt that matchup – if Nylander is available.

It’s the bottom two units that feel like more of the concern, the third unit especially, what with two youngsters playing on it in Robertson and Holmberg. Keefe will feel a little more at ease with Järnkrok around, but he’s still bound to very be careful with that unit, especially in Boston where Bruins coach Jim Montgomery is bound to hunt for a mismatch. A mismatch, that is, like the Pastrnak line going head to head with Robertson, Holmberg, and Järnkrok.

Shifts like that would be bad news for the Leafs, and just the threat of those shifts, period, might limit that unit’s ice time, especially if Nylander isn’t around.

Robertson does bring maybe the only real threat of offence from a bottom six that doesn’t include Nylander. He already has an NHL playoff goal under his belt.

If Nylander does play, and Robertson doesn’t, Keefe can surround Holmberg with two vets (and fellow Swedes) in Nylander and Järnkrok. That’s a much more useful trio and one that has the potential to create some mismatch advantages for the Leafs, namely Nylander facing the Bruins’ bottom two lines and third defensive pair from time to time.

If Nylander doesn’t play, Keefe might be inclined to use David Kämpf-led fourth line even more than he might normally. It’s conceivable that Järnkrok even joins Kämpf and Connor Dewar for third periods (in place of Ryan Reaves) if things are tight.

That’s a combination the Leafs coach could stuff in the defensive zone and play against anyone.

It remains to be seen if Kämpf, Dewar, and Reaves can be a force for good in this series, a line that’s not necessarily scoring but driving play. They did that plenty down the stretch together, to the tune of 66 percent expected goals in a smallish sample size.

The mystery around Nylander overshadowed what the Leafs are doing on defence: Sitting TJ Brodie in Game 1.

The decision feels like less of a surprise after Brodie was scratched earlier in the week in an important playoff-tone-setting kind of game against the Panthers.

Keefe’s Leafs are opting to get two right shots in the lineup, in Ilya Lyubushkin and Timothy Liljegren. They’re opting for as much size as possible, with Lyubushkin and Joel Edmundson, their two deadline additions on defence, both in for Game 1. And they’re opting for what’s worked best in recent weeks as far as pairs are concerned.

Brodie wasn’t fitting in well with anyone, not better than Simon Benoit was with Jake McCabe, for example.

Brodie’s second-half struggles, coupled with the addition of Edmundson and the emergence of Benoit, ultimately knocked him out for the opener. He took part in post-practice work with the other projected scratches on Friday, an odd scene for someone so important to this team not so long ago.

The prospect of Benoit playing ahead of Brodie in Game 1 would have been unthinkable for the Leafs at the beginning of the season.

Of course, this is only the way the Leafs will start.

The Bruins’ punishing forecheck could make this particular construction untenable, with slow-ish, below-average puck movers in Benoit, Edmundson, and Lyubushkin. It remains to be seen if Liljegren is better prepared to handle the physicality and tension of playoff hockey this time around.

Brodie figures to get a chance at some point in this series.

As for Nylander, we’ll see.

(Top photo: Kevin Sousa / NHLI via Getty Images)

–Stats and research courtesy of Natural Stat Trick, Hockey Reference, and Evolving Hockey