Toronto Maple Leafs and William Nylander
Chris Johnston of Sportsnet: The William Nylander holdout takes its effect on Toronto as his lack of production continues. Toronto has suffered as a team — losing seven of their last ten games at home. Mike Babcock mentioned this is like extended training camp.
“The bottom line is we don’t want Willy on the fourth line. We want Willy being a contributor for our hockey club,” said Babcock. “He’s an honest kid and usually puts in a good effort. He’ll continue to work at it. He’s never been through anything probably like this before, it’s tough catching up as you can see.”
Again, the points will eventually come. That mental hurdle of putting it together remains his toughest obstacle.
On Toronto’s problems and Jake Gardiner
Matt Larkin of The Hockey News: Hard times resulted in Toronto having to scapegoat some player(s). One became Jake Gardiner by default. The Toronto Maple Leafs’ defenseman is an analytics darling — ranking in the top ten in several vital categories among his peers.
However, in the fans’ eyes, Gardiner performs little right. He makes glaring mistakes — like the Carl Soderberg pickpocket goal but the pluses outweigh the minuses. It is the perils of having an offensive defenseman in this age. Even the amount of high danger chances per 60 ranks better than most expect.
Confidence has been an issue with Gardiner but the past few weeks make it clear that Toronto needs more to compete. Winning battles means something and occasionally (come playoff time) the physicality is needed.
Gardiner, Kadri, and more…
Kevin McGran of The Star: (mailbag) Again, Toronto makes more mistakes with the puck because they have the puck more. It goes for defensemen and especially ones like Jake Gardiner. He generates more than enough chances to outweigh the negatives. William Nylander is much the same. Part of the problem is being too robotic and not “fun” err creative.
Nazem Kadri presents a different issue. Against weaker opposition, one thinks Kadri would score a ton. That has not been the case. Without a specific shutdown role, Kadri has looked almost lost. Some speculate in Toronto that Kadri may be gone come the summer to create more cap space.
The balance existing between the speed and physicality of the forwards and defensemen seems to be a problem. It is at least, correctable.