William Nylander is killing it at World Championships

After leaving the season earlier than hoped for, William Nylander is making highlight reel plays for Team Sweden over in the IIHF World Championships.

He’s clearly prepping for a giant year in the 2019-20 season and gaining the hockey world’s attention over in Slovakia certainly helps. Nylander currently leads the tournament in points, with seven in just three games for his country — including a four-point performance Monday afternoon against Norway.

The forward scored a total 27 points in 54 games for the Maple Leafs this season, but starting his season late and not training with the team certainly took its toll on the player’s production.

In this tournament so far though, he has a total of two goals and eight points in just three games — including a monster five-point performance against Norway.

But nevertheless Nylander is back to his old ways of making everyone’s jaw hit the floor with what he can do in the offensive zone.

This whole play was almost called a no-goal and that would have just been a crime. Nylander’s ability to motor around the offensive zone with his incredible skating ability is just something else.

Making fools out of the whole country of Norway, he demonstrated why he leads the tournament in points and might be on-track to get his second Worlds MVP title in just three years.

Not only is he making plays out of nothing and getting players like Alexander Wennberg on the scoresheet, Nylander is scoring goals himself.

Here he is just so sneaky and able to get around that scrum in front of the net and put the puck past the crowd. Might be against weaker competition — just slightly, maybe — but Nylander is certainly making it fun to show why he’s worth every single penny.

Scoring just seven goals in the NHL this season does not look so appealing, but he clearly shows that he’s skillful at shooting the puck into the back of the net. Hitting the 20-goal plateau the previous season, that skill is there and that tally should be improved on in the 2019-20 season.

He shot at just 5.4% this season with 130 shots on goal, but in this tournament so far he has two goals on just twelve shots. His second goal came in the game against Italy — Sweden’s first game of the tournament.

A mess in front of the net led to the puck finding Nylander’s stick and him putting it right past the Italian goaltender. Not the most skillful goal of his career, but it puts him among the elite in this tournament, so who cares.

In his MVP-winning tournament back in 2017, Nylander scored seven goals and 14 points in 10 games, he is already halfway there in just three games finished. If Sweden go far, there is definitely consideration that he will win his second MVP title.

Nylander isn’t the only member of the Leafs wrecking havoc over in Slovakia. Martin Marincin so far has scored a goal and added two assists in three games, including assisting on a goal against Canada.