Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

88

William Nylander

Toronto Maple Leafs Right Wing

Forty goals and 98 points in all 82 games, on 423 attempts at a thirty-two-foot median.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16TOR226713+141014314.016:20
2016-17TOR81223961-33290220510.716:01
2017-18TOR82204161+201050818410.916:41
2018-19TOR5472027-4161001305.415:31
2019-20TOR68312859-21290719715.718:13
2020-21TOR51172542+101640213312.816:36
2021-22TOR81344680-916130725613.318:16
2022-23TOR82404787+102890529313.718:33
2023-24TOR82405898+124113731612.719:55
2024-25 so far
Career603217311528+2415862339175712.317:33

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

82 games, 40 goals and 58 assists for 98 points, 11 on the power play, 3 shorthanded, 24 penalty minutes, 19:55 a night and plus-1, with 7 game-winners. He took 52.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,190 minutes, the 71st percentile, and his ice went 57-58 against an expectation of 56.49-51.26.

Level with the chances at the offensive end and seven more conceded than they called for. Ninety-eight points is a career high by eleven and all three of his career shorthanded goals came last season.

The Finesse Game

423 attempts at a median of 32 feet with 28 per cent of them from inside twenty and 28 per cent from beyond forty, 316 of those on goal, converted at 12.7 per cent against a career 12.35 across 1,757 shots.

311 career assists in 603 games. He shoots from further out than any forty-goal scorer should have to and gets away with it because the puck leaves the stick without a wind-up; the handling in traffic at speed is the best on this club and probably in this chapter.

The Physical Game

He is 6-0 and 200 and took 24 penalty minutes.

158 career penalty minutes in 603 games. There is very little contact in his game in either direction; he protects the puck by moving it rather than by absorbing a hit, and nine seasons of that have cost him almost nothing.

The Intangibles

Eighth overall in 2014 by Toronto, nine seasons, one organisation, and 528 points in 603 games.

A career plus-24 and 62 power-play goals in 603 games. He has played all 82 games three times and scored 40 in each of the last two seasons.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,190 minutes

Expected goals
52.4%
71st pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
50.4%
58th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 57 for, 58 against. Expected: 56.5 and 51.3.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
90th
Numbers
71st

The two rank him within 19 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 — 79 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 · 1190 minutes at five-on-five

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
TOR took 52.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 52.4% — 0.3 above the club he did it on.
The role
First line, 1,190 minutes at five-on-five — 82nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
John Tavares56.2%47.6%53.7%
Tyler Bertuzzi56.7%48.6%55.1%
Morgan Rielly51.0%53.3%49.6%

56.2% together, 47.6% for him apart and 53.7% for Tavares apart. He was worse away from Tavares, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Tavares did.

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

423 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 40 of them goals. His median goal came from 24 feet. 28% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 28% from beyond forty.