William Nylander victim of dirty blindside hit in 2016 WJC debut

While everybody was excited to see William Nylander rip up the world juniors, there was some concern that his high-profile status would make him a physical target for the opposition. Those fears were confirmed, as the 19-year-old took a blindside hit to the head late in the first period.

The hit came from Chris Egli, an undrafted prospect in the HC Davos organization. Interestingly enough, this wasn’t even Switzerland’s first game misconduct of the period, as Fabian Heldner was also thrown out of the game for a check to the head/neck.

There wasn’t really much Nylander could do on this play. Breaking down the hit frame by frame, his head is up the entire time, with his eyes only going down for a blink once the puck is received. Egli comes from the blind side and hits him in a vulnerable position.

After the hit, Nylander headed straight to the Swedish dressing room. Though an intermission and half a period has passed, the Leafs’ blue-chip prospect has yet to return.

Nylander, who was on a line with his brother Alex and fellow Leafs prospect Dmytro Timashov, scored his first goal of the tournament just 81 seconds into the game. Timashov has since followed with two goals of his own, as the Swedes current lead 5-2. Given the score and the situation (a Swiss player just hit Adrian Kempe from behind as in the midst of this sentence), one would suspect that we won’t see Nylander for the rest of the night.

UPDATE: Some not so great, if not fully confirmed news coming from Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston..