Popular Maple Leafs analyst puts William Nylander in his crosshairs, and for good reason

The Maple Leafs, as an entire team, are struggling to gain any traction this season and have been unable to sustain any momentum at all through their first 34 games. This has landed them at the bottom of the Atlantic Division and second-last in the Eastern Conference with a 15-14-5 record.

The depth pieces are not contributing anything meaningful, the stars are experiencing a collective failure to launch and there are a ton of questions surrounding just how secure Brad Treliving and Craig Berube's jobs are at the moment -- and rightfully so.

After starting the season off looking like a man possessed, William Nylander's recent struggles are a big reason why this Maple Leafs team can't get anything going right now. He is paid $11.5M per season to produce, and, well, he simply isn't doing that right now.

Steve "Dangle" Glynn has long been a recognizable figure in the Maple Leafs community for his "LFR" Leafs fan reaction videos, and his popularity on YouTube even allowed him to start up his own podcasting network (SDPN).

Dangle recently took aim at William Nylander on an episode of his Steve Dangle Podcast, sharing a clip on social media this weekend of him ripping into Nylander for his total lack of effort and completely absent goal scoring, even going so far as to accuse Nylander of purposely trying to get Craig Berube fired.

Dangle's main message? He wants to see the team hold Nylander accountable, and scratch him for a game. I can't say I'd argue against that decision too hard.

So, how bad is it for Nylander right now? Well, he has not scored a goal in the month of December. Nylander's last goal came way back on November 26th against the Columbus Blue Jackets. His goalless streak has reached 10 games.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Nylander has only tallied 4 assists in the last 9 games, going 7 games without recording a single point over that span, and going a collective -8.

What's frustrating about this is that Nylander's start to the season was so hot. Even with his inconsistent and unproductive play over the last month, he still has 36 points in 30 games, and is still leading his team in both assists and points.

Simply put, the Leafs need more from Nylander, who has shown the ability to singlehandedly take over games in the past. The lack of effort that the team is showing collectively is one thing, but they're a sum of all of their parts, and Nylander not showing the sort of effort his team needs on a nightly basis is absolutely rubbing off on the rest of the roster.

Craig Berube has run out of things to say, recently turning away media questions about the effort, and directing those questions towards his players. Even Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Oliver Ekman-Larsson have come forward and openly addressed the need for more energy from the guys in the locker room.

The Leafs need to get back to winning hockey games, as they now have just an 11.1% chance of making the playoffs, per Money Puck. It starts with the top guys, William Nylander among them.