William Nylander puts on a show at the World Championships

William Nylander did William Nylander stuff yesterday while playing with one of his childhood idols, Nicklas Backstrom.

Nylander, who is a perfect human being, scored two goals on five shots and added an assist on a Backstrom goal. Also, both goals were absolutely gorgeous.

On his first goal, Nylander took a very nice feed from Dallas Stars defenceman John Klingberg, who fired a rocket pass from the point to the bottom of the faceoff circle right on Nylander’s tape. Nylander found himself behind the defence and he took the puck across front of the net and gave a little fake, which Danish goaltender George Sorensen bit on. Sorensen was then down and at the mercy of Nylander who displayed the patience we’ve seen from him so many times and tucked the puck between Sorensen’s foot and the post.

Less than five minutes later, my beloved adopted son William was at it again.

*infinite eyeball emojis*

When people ask me what my favourite hobby is I either tell them “watching William Nylander skate through the neutral zone with the puck” or “watching William Nylander cruise around the perimeter of the offensive zone with the puck, then pouncing on an opportunity when given an inch.” This goal began with the latter and, boy, did Denmark give him an inch (probably closer to a foot.) The poor Danish player attempting to shadow Nylander runs into a teammate and Nylander immediately seizes the opportunity. He steps into the slot, where he is now 2 on 1 with Backstrom from the hash marks in, and makes a nice feed under another Dane’s stick to Backstrom. Backstrom makes a nice one-touch pass back to Nylander who buries it top shelf after jumping around the defender. This is what I live for. Also, you have to give Sorensen credit on this one, he almost went full Hasek. He had no chance, but he made a very athletic play and somehow almost made the save of his life.

Nylander added a secondary assist on Backstrom’s goal on the powerplay in the final minutes of the game, but this one was all about the play by Klingberg if we’re being honest.

I promise Nylander passed it to Klingberg before this clip begins.

Perfect hockey boy William now has nine points in six games at the World Championship, tying USA’s Johnny Gaudreau and France’s Stephane da Costa for second place in tournament points (yes, this Stephane da Costa).

Sweden now sits third in Group A with 13 points (4-0-1-1) and will take on Slovakia on Tuesday at 6:15 AM ET. Wake up and watch William do his thing, people.