The Toronto Maple Leafs may not have seen a lot go their way in the 2025-26 season, but the one constant through it all was that William Nylander was yet again a key cog in the machine from an offensive standpoint. He led the team in scoring for the first time in his career and he was the only member of the team to produce at over a point per game at 1.25. That also marked the fourth straight season that Nylander was a point-per-game player, and it’s safe to say the Leafs would have done much worse if it weren’t for his scoring output.

Nylander missed a total of 17 games this year, the first time since the 2021-22 campaign that he was unable to complete a full 82-game schedule. A lower-body injury plagued him for the first half of the season, including missing a couple of weeks in January. The fact he still produced as well as he did despite missing that much time speaks to just how critical he will be to their efforts in righting the ship next season.

“Unless it was a full rebuild and we were going to get rid of everybody, then it’s a different story. Then you take that conversation then,” Nylander said to The Athletic’s Jonas Siegel on April 2 on whether he could stomach a rebuild.  “But just to do a retool or whatever, I don’t even know, but I mean, I still want to be here, yeah.”

Nylander’s season was defined by both his offensive prowess and frustrating setbacks. As mentioned earlier, this was the first time in his career that he was the Leafs’ leading scorer despite missing significant time due to injury for the first time in four years. It was clear through the latter half of the campaign and at the Winter Olympics that he was not operating at maximum efficiency, but he continued to put up the points regardless of the circumstances.

He went scoreless in 19 games and the longest drought was four games, but otherwise he could be counted on to put up at least a point every night. In fact, 27 of Nylander’s points came from after the Olympic break to the end of the campaign even as the team around him fell apart dramatically. For all of his flaws as a player in terms of maintaining a level of care and the lack of defensive prowess, Nylander has remained one of the Leafs’ most important players in terms of offensive impact.

Despite the success he had individually on the ice, the season wasn’t without its points of contention for Nylander. It was clear for weeks that he and head coach Craig Berube were not fully on the same page, and the disconnect became more apparent as the Leafs’ season collapsed. His nonchalant attitude has usually made him an endearing figure in what can be an intense market, but it irked some fans more than usual in a season that went so poorly. Yet it was clear the losses weighed heavily on him, as evidenced by him flipping the middle finger at a camera during a January game against the Colorado Avalanche that resulted in a $5000 fine and him having to apologize multiple times.

“It’s hard to really stay optimistic in this situation. Just trying to get a win tonight,” Nylander said before a game against the Montreal Canadiens on March 10. “It’s not going to help being frustrated. I think the mood in the locker room has changed a little bit. It’s made it a better environment.”

The underlying metrics for Nylander do look great at first glance, though it is more a reflection of the state of the Leafs’ lost season and Berube’s bad system than the player experiencing a decline. He ranked in the upper half of the team among the regulars for all of the listed metrics, including finishing third among the regulars in CF% behind Morgan Rielly and John Tavares.

Nylander has typically been above 50% in possession metrics, shot shares, and scoring chances through much of his career, and they have come on teams that better cater to his strengths (ie, Sheldon Keefe). The numbers across the board have only taken a hit in the last two years, which just so happens to coincide with the arrival of Berube as head coach. There is no reason to believe that the advanced metrics won’t improve if the Leafs decide to move on from Berube and instead go with a coach who is a better fit for the growing trends of the NHL.

Regardless of how the Leafs look come the start of next season, one has to wonder if it will finally be the time that Nylander gets a proper look down the middle in an attempt to ease Tavares’ workload. There have been some attempts in seasons past and Nylander has been on board with giving it a go, but the experiments have not gotten a lot of runway and they instead quickly go back to slotting him on the wing. That could have some impact on his advanced metrics, but would do a lot of good for the Leafs long-term in terms of solving their growing concern of who will be the second-line centre behind Auston Matthews.

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