LeBrun: William Nylander embraces unplanned playoff role change as Leafs take Bruins to the brink


BOSTON​ —​ The​ paperwork​ making the​ contract​ official​ went​ through​ at​ 4:55 p.m.​ ET with exactly five​ minutes​ to spare.

Imagine for​​ a moment the notion that give or take a few minutes on Dec. 1, the Toronto Maple Leafs could have been devoid of William Nylander’s services for an entire season.

Which means he wouldn’t have been around in the opening round of the playoffs to replace the once-again suspended Nazem Kadri as their third-line centre.

Which means he wouldn’t have been here Friday night at TD Garden going toe-to-toe with Boston’s second line centred by David Krejci and more than holding his own.

Imagine what that looks like.

Nylander doesn’t want to. But I did ask him Friday night after his team’s biggest win of the season, a crucial 2-1 Game 5 victory which gave the Leafs a 3-2 series lead, how crazy it was that he came mere minutes from having his NHL season yanked away, robbed of the adrenaline that’s pumping through his veins right now as he’s relishing the opportunity he’s been given.

“Of course, it would have been very tough,” Nylander thinking back to Dec. 1 and how crushing it would have been not to get a deal done.

“But I’m thankful it got done and now I’m here and ready to go.”

No, thankfully for everyone involved, Kyle Dubas pulled it off on Dec. 1 capping a controversial and adversity-filled negotiation which kicked off his tenure as Leafs GM.

As an aside, the Leafs in this playoff series are making their GM look rather good; midseason trade acquisition Jake Muzzin once again Friday night was an absolute monster, July 1 signing John Tavares has gone toe-to-toe with Patrice Bergeron all series and not blinked, and yes, the young Nylander was indeed well worth signing at the wire back on Dec. 1 when you consider his role in this series.

Going into Game 5, there’s no question Leafs head coach Mike Babcock would have been concerned how Nylander was going to fare in his first road playoff game as a centre. Without last line change, there’s not much the Leafs coach could do to shelter his usage.

And really, deep down, even though this isn’t the time of year for teaching moments, at some point as a younger player you have to have your sink-or-swim moment.

You’re not going to know what Nylander is going to do at centre on the road in a playoff series with tougher matchups until you let him do it.

“I think it was pretty good,” responded Nylander when asked about his night. “I played against Krejci a lot. I think we were able to spend most of the time in their zone and tried to dominate them down there.”

The other option for Babcock after Kadri got suspended was to shift the veteran Patrick Marleau to centre. But he gave Nylander the first crack at it. Although it certainly is of great benefit to Nylander to have Marleau at his side on his line given the veteran’s past experience as both a centre and winger.

“Yeah of course,” Nylander’s eyes lit up when asked about Marleau. “And knowing that he’s got your back there if anything happens. He’s a great guy to have there helping you out playing centre.”

Compete. That was the first word out of Marleau’s mouth Friday night when asked about Nylander’s game.

“I think that’s the main thing, if we compete and win those battles, when you do that it’s hard for the other team to get their chances,” said Marleau. “I think you saw tonight Willy was winning his battles, coming back hard and playing the other team hard.”

Nylander, like Marleau, came up through hockey a natural centre, so the adjustment isn’t overwhelming even if it’s at the NHL level.

“It’s one of those things where the system nowadays if you’re first guy back you’re down low, so you’re basically the centreman,” Marleau said when asked about the challenge in going back and forth between positions. “So it’s a matter of trying to be that guy a little bit more than that. And talking it out when you come back to our own zone. He’s taking faceoffs on the right side, I’m taking faceoffs on the left side, we’re switching back and forth. It’s been working.”

Nylander didn’t fare well in the faceoff circle Friday night, winning just five of 13; Marleau went 2-for-4.

But otherwise their work on Krejci’s unit was impeccable, especially considering star winger David Pastrnak began the game on the Krejci line.

What surprised me is that with last line change, Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy didn’t try to exploit the Nylander matchup by mixing in a higher number of shifts for Patrice Bergeron’s top line. He stayed pretty consistent to Krejci on Nylander. The reasoning might be because as he explained postgame, Cassidy wanted to use Bergeron’s line against both the Tavares and the Auston Matthews line. That was the Bruins’ game plan, which didn’t leave the option of trying to take advantage of Nylander.

Cassidy’s a heck of a coach and what the hell do I know about NHL coaching, but to me you’ve got a young player on Toronto with barely any NHL experience at centre and you got matchup control in your own rink, you have to throw your top line at him more than he did. Oh well.

Now the series shifts to Toronto for Game 6 on Sunday where the Leafs can win their first playoff series in 15 years and on the Nylander front, Babcock can better control his usage with last line change.

Marleau says the next step for his unit with Nylander and Connor Brown is to score a goal.

“We’ve gotten a lot of great looks but the other thing we haven’t done yet is fill the net. I think that’s coming,” said Marleau.

Marleau thinks it’s coming because he feels the chemistry with himself and Nylander developing.

“Since we’ve started playing together, we’ve talked things out,” said Marleau. “Get used to each other’s tendencies and how we want to attack the other team. I think we’ve got pretty comfortable with each other.”

If the Leafs do win one more game against Boston, it also means they’ll get Kadri back. At that point I’d like to see Nylander shift up to right wing alongside Matthews and Kasperi Kapanen slide down to Kadri’s line. That’s their best look lineup-wise at this juncture in my humble opinion.

But before Kadri can return, the Leafs have to close out a Bruins team that won’t go away easy.

Nylander was asked postgame Friday night what he felt was different about his team in this series compared to a year ago when they lost in seven games to the Bruins.

“Experience as a team,” he said. “We’ve gotten one year older. We know a little bit more about what it takes.”

And we know about Nylander’s game now.