William Nylander, get you some.
He’s over in Slovakia, taking over for Team Sweden and leading them in a way that none of their other forwards are. Everyone’s fawned over Elias Pettersson for a full season, but he’s been moved off of the 1C position to being a winger on a lower line. Nylander, meanwhile, is playing on his opposite wing and is, ho hum, leading the tournament in scoring AND in plus-minus!
Now, we can nitpick. A lot of those points have come against Italy and Norway, not exactly teams we would expect to realistically compete against Sweden’s tier.
Or, and I’m just gonna throw this out there, we have fun with this. We take it as a sign that he’s still an elite player who is capable of coming back next year and wrecking shit. We should all want him to come back next year and wreck shit.
He has eight points in three games. The next closest teammate is his linemate, Patric Hornqvist. Elias Pettersson, who also started on that line, was moved off of it while Nylander is still out there helping Alex Wennberg—who only scored two goals all season in the NHL—score two goals in one game with two primary assists.
The thing about today’s William Nylander performance isn’t that he picked up five points and a bunch of them were gimmes. Two ridiculous passes. One circus shift that ended in a goal. Created the entries on 4/5.
— Scott Wheeler (@scottcwheeler) May 14, 2019
The fact that he’s doing that, at least sometimes, at LW also opens up some real fun and exciting possibilities for next season to address their big imbalance between LW and RW depth.
Can anyone say “William Nylander - Auston Matthews - Kasperi Kapanen”? Yes please!
Can any of y’all Jeremy Bracco stans say “open a spot at RW for Bracco”? It’s there for the taking now!
ONTO THE LINKS
Ian Scott and the Prince Albert Raiders won a nail-biting game 7 against Vancouver to win the WHL Finals in overtime. Scott stopped 22 of 24 shots in the win and has been named the playoff MVP. He’ll join Fedor “Forever” Gordeev and the Guelph Storm in the Memorial Cup tournament.
Final score: PA 3 VCR 2 (OT)
— Prince Albert Herald (@PADailyHerald) May 14, 2019
The Prince Albert Raiders are your 2019 WHL Champions.
Dante Hannoun is the overtime hero. Noah Gregor with two goals and one assist. Goaltender Ian Scott is the playoff MVP. Next stop: Halifax, NS...#WHLChampionship pic.twitter.com/4HB2TlnLvJ
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AROUND THE NHL
The St. Louis Blues took game 2 against the San Jose Sharks by a score of 4-2, tying the series up 1-1 as they go back to St Louis. Oskar Sundqvist puts the nail in the coffin, but it’s Alexander Steen who deserves credit with this crazy pass.
