One Leaf is quickly climbing up the 5v5 points leaderboard and it's not Auston Matthews
Prior to this season, the Toronto Maple Leafs had an affinity for producing offense at 5v5 - particularly Auston Matthews, who is one of the league's leaders in 5v5 goal scoring since he was drafted into the league in 2016. This season, the 5v5 production has been a little tougher to come by for the Leafs, but thankfully, one of their start players has stepped up his game and is helping tremendously in that category. No, it's not Matthews yet again. This time, it's William Nylander.
After a sensational outing last night against the New York Islanders, where Nylander produced 3 even strength points and 4 points in total on the night, the Calgary-born Swede has moved up into the top-7 in the entire NHL in 5v5 points production. As of this point, only Erik Karlsson, Connor McDavid, Sidney Crosby, Jason Robertson, Jack Hughes and Elias Pettersson are ahead of him. Nylander has produced 38 even strength points this season, which has him tied for 7th in the league in that category along with David Pastrnak, Nikita Kucherov and former Leaf Zach Hyman.
It's still so absurd to me that Nylander will not be attending the NHL All-Star Game in Florida next week. Not only is he one of the best players on one of the best teams in the league, but he's arguably a top-5 or top-10 right winger in hockey right now.
