William Nylander is as hot as they come.
The 25-year-old Toronto Maple Leafs winger recorded a highlight-reel assist in Wednesday’s game against the New York Rangers to continue his point-per-game pace in 2021–22.
Just 3:30 into the first period, Nylander connected with Mitch Marner for a beautiful power-play goal to give the Leafs a 2–0 lead.
Mitch Marner snipes home the gorgeous no-look backhand pass from William Nylander! Power play goal, Leafs up 2!#LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/kUNGKn1GQN
— Hockey Daily 365 (@HockeyDaily365) January 20, 2022
Despite trailing 2–0 after Marner’s goal and 3–1 after 20 minutes of play, the Rangers ultimately came back and won the game by a 6–3 score.
Nylander’s no-look helper put him up to 37 points in 37 games this season, second only to Auston Matthews on the Leafs’ scoring leaderboard. The 2014 first-round pick now has exactly 300 points (119 goals, 181 assists) in his 395-game National Hockey League career.
John Tavares picked up the secondary assist on Marner’s eighth goal of the season. Marner entered Wednesday’s game having gone the previous 100 contests without scoring a single power-play goal.
Leafs Mitch Marner snaps a 100-game goalless drought on the PP dating back to Feb 1, 2020
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) January 20, 2022
Ilya Mikheyev and Michael Bunting also scored for the Leafs in Wednesday’s game. Ryan Reaves and Adam Fox both tallied twice for the Rangers, with Ryan Strome and Chris Kreider also scoring in the 6–3 win.
The Leafs fell to 24–10–3 with the loss. Nylander and Co. will have a chance to rebound on Saturday when they take on the New York Islanders at the brand-new UBS Arena.