Alex Nylander
Toronto Maple Leafs Left Wing
Eleven goals in 28 games, from an eighth-overall pick on his fifth organisation.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-17 | BUF | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | -2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 0.0 | 12:20 |
| 2017-18 | BUF | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | -3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 50.0 | 12:52 |
| 2018-19 | BUF | 12 | 2 | 2 | 4 | -4 | 4 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 16 | 12.5 | 12:12 |
| 2019-20 | CHI | 65 | 10 | 16 | 26 | -2 | 10 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 94 | 10.6 | 12:08 |
| 2022-23 | PIT | 9 | 1 | 1 | 2 | +1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 9.1 | 12:18 |
| 2023-24 | PIT/CBJ | 28 | 11 | 4 | 15 | -1 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 72 | 15.3 | 16:15 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 121 | 25 | 24 | 49 | -11 | 26 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 199 | 12.6 | 13:08 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
28 games across Pittsburgh and Columbus, 11 goals and 4 assists for 15 points, 2 on the power play, 6 penalty minutes, 16:15 a night and minus-1, with 2 game-winners. He took 47.8 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 388 minutes, the 36th percentile, and his ice went 21-20 against an expectation of 18.28-19.96.
Three goals of finishing above what the chances were worth and level at the other end. Eleven goals in 28 games is nearly half of the 25 he has scored in his career.
The Finesse Game
102 attempts at a median of 25 feet with 46 per cent of them from inside twenty, 71 of those on goal, converted at 15.3 per cent against a career 12.56 across 199 shots.
Twenty-five career goals in 121 games. Forty-six per cent of his attempts came from inside twenty feet, which for a winger who has spent eight years being called a perimeter player is the most encouraging thing in his file.
The Physical Game
He is 6-1 and 205 and took 6 penalty minutes.
Twenty-six career penalty minutes in 121 games. He is a reasonable size and does nothing with it; there is no forechecking and no contact in his game, and that is most of why an eighth-overall pick has played 121 games in eight years.
The Intangibles
Eighth overall in 2016 by Buffalo, six seasons, and Toronto will be his fifth organisation.
A career minus-11 in 121 games. He was the eighth pick in his draft and has played 121 NHL games in eight years; 11 goals in 28 of them last season is the first thing he has done that a club would pay for.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 388 minutes
- Expected goals
- 47.8%
- 37th pct
- Shot attempts
- 50.9%
- 62nd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 21 for, 20 against. Expected: 18.3 and 20.0.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 10 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2023-24 with CBJ · 329 minutes at five-on-five
- Johnny Gaudreauoff the roster55%
- Boone Jenner30%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2023-24
- The club
- CBJ took 45.9% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 47.8% — 1.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- 388 minutes at five-on-five — 12th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Johnny Gaudreau | 46.7% | 48.8% | 50.3% |
| Zach Werenski | 47.6% | 47.9% | 48.2% |
| Ivan Provorov | 44.4% | 49.5% | 45.5% |
46.7% together, 48.8% for him apart and 50.3% for Gaudreau apart. Gaudreau was better away from him while his own share held, which is a mark against him more than for him.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
102 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 11 of them goals. His median goal came from 32 feet. 46% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 22% from beyond forty.