The Hockey PDOcast - Breaking Down Willy Nylander’s Career Year, and How He’s Doing It

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jesse Marshall to break down Willy Nylander's career, year, the evolution of his game, and how he's become such a dominant offensive force this season.If you'd like to participate the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here:https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pee-Ocast. My name is Dmitri Filipovich and joining me as my good buddy, Jesse Marshall. Jesse, what's going on, man? Not much, man, excited to get into it today. As promised last time we spoke, we've got a film club covered today on the prolific Willie Neelander. You wrote about him from McKean, did a deep dive yourself, got into the tape, the nitty-gritty,

and I thought it would be a great opportunity for us to do so. here as well. So looking forward to that. I think the main takeaway, obviously, he's been a very productive player for a while now, but clearly has taken his game to hold new Knight Heights this season. And not only is a well-timed for this Leafs team that I think needs it more than ever from him, but also clearly, individually for him as well in a contract here where he is set to get paid very, very handsomely this offseason. Yeah. And I'm shocked. You know, you talk about taking his game to the next level, there's just such a versatility around how he went on that point streak. You know, and we'll get into it, but I mean, from lowering his shoulder and driving through

the neutral zone on these crazy downhill runs to lurking a little bit and losing himself in the fray and using some of like the standard excellent tactics that top goal scores used to kind of get lost in the shuffle and unmarked themselves from the defense. So just this extreme patience, Dimitri, that I think is like the ultimate example. of how far he's come. And that's not to say that he wasn't a patient player before, but, you know, in the chess match of the hockey game, he's letting that clock run out. I mean, he is holding on to the puck to almost make sure as a viewer feel uncomfortable with how long he's making his run into the scoring area. But he's waiting for his lane to open. And he's,

you know, got linemates that aren't afraid to go to the front of the net and clog up scoring areas and eat up bodies there. And that space, you know, he finds it, he uses it. And I think the most intriguing thing I watched is how far he will loop high in the offensive zone with possession to give himself a downward ramp to run into. So, you know, I'm talking, corraling the puck along the circle. And instead of making a drive to the net, he carries it up to the blue line. He's got players chasing him, but he's also building speed and building momentum.

So he makes his cut in towards the slot area or a scoring area, he's got so much speed and so much momentum that these flat-footed defenders, you know, that are littered on the ice between him and the net can't do anything to stop him because he's built up so much speed. And to me, those are the hallmarks. The patience and the ability to drive counter to the grain to build your speed up are like the hallmarks of somebody who's 110% figured it out at this level and knows what he needs to do to create time and space. for himself. So that evolution, I think, that you point into is very much been on display for him through the early part of the season and, frankly, at the end of last year as well. Yeah, no better reflection of the just unbelievable level of confidence he's playing with than exactly what you're describing there, where he works his way up the wall and then comes across the blue line. And oftentimes he's doing it on his backhand with a defender trying to poke the puck away,

kind of glued to his hip pocket, chasing him every step of the way, and just confidently couldn't be less bothered, just surveying, waiting for something to open up. A couple times I've noticed even the season, he will straight up take the puck out of the zone and regroup in the neutral zone and then build up that ramp that you mentioned and come back in, which is an act we often see reserved for three-on-three,

but he's doing this during five-on-five play sometimes and just freelancing and creating in that capacity. So, yeah, I mean, it's been unbelievable. Well, he started the year, as you mentioned, with the 17-game point streak in 20 games so far, just to give the rundown of the numbers and the context, it'll be guided in this conversation for our listeners, 12 goals, which is a 49-goal pace. 15 assists, those 27 points are tied for 12-most and an 11-point pace this season. Now, here is the meat of it and what I think is going to guide the entryway into this conversation

for us. Fourth in slot shots, sixth in the shots on goal, eighth in scoring chances, 13th in inner-slot-shots, 14th in cycle chances, 14th in slot passes, all via sport logic. And Mike Kelly had this great stat where it showed his year by year improvement or evolution, if you want to call it that, in terms of quote unquote slot driving plays, which is essentially just carrying the puck in between the dots in the offensive zone and getting into that highly contested high traffic area in the middle of the ice that everyone's trying to fight and get into, which is where you create goals in today's game.

2019-20, 3.1 of those slot-driving plays per game, next year, 3.5, next year 4, 2020-2020, 2023, last year of 4.6, and this year all the way up to 6.1 slot-driving plays per game. And I think the reason why that's notable, and I keep coming back to that, is you certainly see it on the table, you watch and play. But it also is funny considering his reputation amongst the haters over the years, right, where he's soft, he's a perimeter player, He doesn't get to the areas you need to get to in the postseason where you create offense and where you win games when it matters most. Here he is this year, almost exclusively creating his offense there by just relentlessly

and repeatedly attacking that middle of the ice. Yeah, that shows just about every data point you look at to Dimitri because in the article for McKeens today, I put a link in there to Micah's heat map for the maple leaves with Nealander on the ice. and you are drowning in a sea of crimson in the net front area and in the slot. I mean, the rate at which he's driving shots from that area is absolutely insane. And it all goes back to me too to how much he's carrying it, right? That, I think any time you're looking around for the success of a player who's having an

unbelievable season or a breakout period, you go look back at how long they carry the puck, how often they carry it across the blue line. He's averaging over 15 carry-ins per 60 at even strength second only to off. Austin Matthews, who was one carry ahead of him, and he's crossing the offensive blue line with a puck on a stick for 76% of those. That is a success rate unmatched by anybody else on the Toronto roster. That is what leads to these long cycles and these long offensive zone possessions. They're coming off of his stick. And I noted, even if you look between the blue lines and you focus outside of the offensive zone,

the way he's gaining that momentum is just terrifying for defenders. And he's become the master, Dmitri, at putting one touch on the puck. You know, just giving it almost a push forward so that now you're in a loose puck race as a defenseman and he still almost has possession of it, right? Like he's manipulating the puck into a soft area just past you with that little poke where you either have, you have two decisions, right? Take interference penalty or turn around, right? Neither of those are good options.

and frankly, I don't think there's that many defensemen in the National Hockey League that could just keep their backward momentum, you know, solid enough to a point that they can keep facing him and keep him in front of them without taking a penalty. So he creates these insanely compromising situations for defensemen that put him in an advantage and allow him to go around someone laterally or step around them or get into that soft area and win a short five-foot loose puck race that enables him to maintain possession. And these things are all gearing these carrions that he's just racking up for the maple leaves. And once he crosses the line with the puck on a stick, what you see after that is just so fruitful.

Again, it's that patience. It's knowing when to pass. It's knowing when to delay. It's knowing when to eat it along the wall. Every decision he makes, you know, early this year seems to be the right one to elongate the possession. But I've, you know, I found it intriguing that those carrions are driving it. And the way he's getting those carrions, I think even has evolved for him over time. You know, not to say he isn't, you know, hasn't lowered his shoulder and started driving to the net a lot.

But, you know, creating those little one-touch races and those loose puck battles, the other races, most of the time he's always going to win. It's a really strategic way to position himself in a spot where he can get the puck more often than he doesn't. Well, and on this week's lead-in to Hockey Net in Canada when the Leaps played the Penguins this past Saturday, I thought Jennifer Bonneral and Kevin BX had a really good segment. where they were highlighting the compromising position that he puts defenders in off the rush, where, you know, so often we hear about and you're taught keeping the puck close to you, right, to protect it. The further out it is from you, not only is it potentially more difficult to handle,

but also it's more likely that a defender with a good reach and a good stick is going to be able to poke it away or do something with it to defend against you. And in this case, and this speaks that a confidence are talking about as well, but also just how he's operating on the move. He keeps the puck out almost an absurdly large degree, right? And he's like, he's almost baiting you into showing your stick and kind of putting yourself out there as a defender. And then he's able to sweep it across and go basically from point A to point B across his body and bring it in the blink of an eye so quickly that you can't even really react to it. And he's beating a couple of goalies coming in off the rush that way this year where he almost looks like he's going one way, quickly sweeps it across.

Nicole, he's out of position, he tucks it in cleanly. He's also beaten defenders that way to get into the zone to begin with. And so I thought that was a really interesting point because it's so counter to maybe how you think you should be playing. But he just executes it time and time again and is clearly doing it purposefully, right? Like there's a reason why he's going out of his way to almost comically bring the puck out there to make the defender make the first move and then he's attacking him off of that. Yeah. This one against the wild that we have on screen now for the watchers is one of my favorite ones is just that the legs never stop moving and he takes you know he takes one player laterally three times right he tests them to the interior of the ice backs them off

the wall loops back in and sucks them back to the wall and has enough speed at this point to go around him and work in towards the goalie um that's ridiculous you know it's just in all these clips you see of him and in everything that you see with him getting those zone entries he's you know he's doing that Pup protection and sometimes with one arm that you talk about. But he's also, his legs are just constantly pumping. He's constantly creating momentum for himself. And it's what gives him that separation. He runs like almost a football route up ice, right? Like he's carrying the mail to sort of juke these guys out and create this level of separation. You know, there's that old adage, the legs feed the wolf in all these clips. You know, he's using his legs in speed. And frankly,

I know for, I know we don't generally think of him as being the biggest player in the world, but have you ever taken a look at how long it stick it? Like, he is using an abnormally large twig for his size and it gives him that ability to put one hand on it, stick it out wide, and then use his shoulder and his lower body to kind of like fend these defenders off. But, like make no mistake about it. Like, this is a very physical style of driving in the net. Like, he's not avoiding contact. You know, he's having people lean on him, whack his hands. But it's just the rate of speed at which he's traveling, you know, again, unless you're taking a penalty, it's really difficult to deal with this if you're a defenseman. And it forces you, again,

to turn around when you're at your least effective and you're skating the same direction he is, comes a lot harder to handle that situation to keep him on the perimeter. And that's what he's using to kind of drive these guys wide, turn him around and then cut back in towards the middle of the ice. You know, that's not something you can even fix with a deeper gap, Dimitri, right? If you back up more, you're just giving him a longer ramp to it. attack you. And if you can't skate with him, and you don't have that lateral on mobility, you're in for a long night. Yeah, you can't give him the space because as he's shown, he'll be very willing to just, as he comes into his own, just step into a shot and rifle it himself, right? So you don't want to give him the space to do

so. But if you overcomit, then he's going to just tuck that shoulder and go past you. And it's adding such a layer of unpredictability to kind of disguising his intentions and what he's going to do. And you mentioned not shying away from contact. It reminds me a little bit of. of the conversation we had about Elias Pedersen towards the end of last year, where you made the point of, and some of the greatest wingers in today's game do this despite not necessarily profiling as the biggest players or, or, you know, having the largest frames where Jake Ensel, I think of as well as does this, where they almost like initiate contact prematurely to let the defender know they're there and kind of establish that inside leverage really

quickly and kind of like get the get the jump on them and then after they do that the defender almost as a reaction to it leans in a little bit and kind of tries to compensate for what just happened to him and by that point he then uses that leverage additionally to just kind of get past them right and he does that time and time again where he's trying to actually create that initial contact so that he can get the leg up on the defender and if anything like he's not only not shying away from contact he's actually the one that's initiating these sequences yeah 100 percent And like I said, you know, on a lot of these drives, Dimitri, he's got pressure on the front and back of him, right? So he's making these wide sweeps to protect the puck from a back checker and then simultaneously using his speed to dance around who's ever in front of him. It's one thing that's interesting to me is the variety of approach, right, that he takes. We've talked about these long routes in the offensive zone. We've talked about initiating physically. But I think he's just as good. at taking a long lap through the offensive zone

to completely disconnect himself from the defense. I think that's been a really large part of this too. When you're on a point streak like this, you know, the coach is talking, the pregame's going to be watch 88. Like, you know, you can't let him run wild out there. You draw a lot of attention to yourself. He's gone on these really long sweeping journeys through the offensive zone where he'll leave his wing and take a lap up towards the blue line,

end up on the opposite side of the ice, comes around the net. it's a full offensive zone lap to get back to his spot, but by the time he gets there, nobody's marked him, right? The defense is totally oblivious to where he is. And he'll drive hard into the zone, pull up, dish a pass,

and then just slink off into a corner somewhere and hang out there for a second. Defenders turn around, their focus is at the point. He's now in behind them. And when he has the time and space to shoot, it is a pretty thing. He loads that body up, wide base, load of the ice, and gets 100% of what he can behind that shot and lets his stick do a lot of the work too. And when you allow him that space to wind up and shoot, and he's gotten a lot of those looks by virtue of how he can lose himself in the offensive zone, he has scored a lot of goals this season by just absolutely canoning through the net.

He's here looking at, you know, these 15, 25 foot shots where he's got an uncontested one-timer he's loaded up for. You know, it's been a lot of fun to watch him off puck in the offensive zone. We think of like, you know, players lurking about in the same area sometimes or like in their spot waiting for that puck to squirt out. This is all self-determination to me. Like he's making it happen by moving his feet, getting out of his assigned area, going somewhere else leaving the zone even, right, looping up past the blue line and coming back in.

Like these are all things he's doing to lose himself in the fray. And I think it's super effective. It's, again, when you have the shot that he has, you got to find unique ways to get into a position to use it. And he's, you know, taking these really unorthodox pathways through the offensive zone to establish himself. Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, I have a whole section here that I want to get into with you on the offensive zone habits and what he's displaying there. we just put a bow on the sort of transition and rush element here before we get to that, though, because the point that I want to hammer was, I think when I said at the top that this Leafs team

kind of needs it more than ever, I think that's reflected in the usage, right, where he's playing 20, 25 per game, which is about two minutes more than he's ever averaged in these games where they're pushing for offense and where they're like very high leverage moments lading games, like the two most recent games they played, right, where it was a really close game in Pittsburgh that they lost and then a really close game at home against the Panthers in their most recent game, which they won in a shootout. He played 24-42 and 26-10 in those. And like for all the coach speak and everything, like actions I always say speak louder than words for coaches. And you can tell how they're feeling about their players based on how they're using them. And that

tells me more than anything else. And this Leafs team is I think 16th in the league, kind of middle of the pack right now in terms of 5-1-5 offense. I think this has been a trend for a few years now where I don't know if it's because the personnel itself has aged over time, of course, organically, or because they've sort of tried to compensate for whatever defensive shortcomings or perceived ones they thought they had in post seasons. But they've kind of like slowed down offensively, right? They've become more of a methodical puck possession team. They're not necessarily trying to run and gotten unless they need to, unless they're pulled into those game environments. And that's why I think his skill set in particular in this area is so vital.

this team because he's the one player they have that can really just sort of create that pace for them, right? Like he can speed them up and he can take a puck that looks like it's very harmless in their own zone. And before you know it, they're attacking downhill with numbers in transition. And Matthews carries the puck in a lot. Warner obviously has a ton of playmaking skill himself. But he's the one player that kind of puts that all together and can just almost be a singular force. in transition, and I think they really, really need that as they're currently constructed. Yeah, I think that as time has gone on and watching the video from the early part of the

streak to the later part of the streak, you could see, I think, a change in his approach, whereas he started to have success in Carians, Dimitri, and that confidence built. I think so did the deepness with which he came back to support the defense on the initial part of the breakout, knowing full well that he was going to be more successful if he had that longer ramp. So I think as time has gone on, you've even seen his defenseman change in their habits to where I think they look for him even more now because he's deeper, he's available and they know what happens if they give it to him, right? Like, he's going to get them out of a jam. And he's, I think, been excellent in support. And, you know, I don't think it's rare at times

to see him, you know, hip to hip with his D when the breakout starts. We're on the goal line for that matter because he knows the more ramp he has to get in there, the better it's going to be. So I think that's a discernible change for me from early in that streak to later in that streak is one, the willingness of the defense to just give it up to him and let him do his job. And then also the depth with which he positioned himself on the breakout in support of those defenses to sort of make himself as like a sidecar available guy right out of the gate. I was speaking with someone in the industry of coach recently, and I was just, we were talking about kind of like extreme ideas in terms of what you could do actually in a hockey game in terms of personnel usage tactics that could actually conceivably work and make sense. And something I keep going back to, and I know we've spoken about this on the show plenty over the years, is like, I get the reservation of using your best players on the penalty kill, right, because it exposes them to potentially have a blow.

lock shots and then again hurt that way, you're less likely theoretically to score. And so you don't want to burn out whatever energy reserves they have playing kind of lower leverage offensive minutes in that way. And you have other players whose kind of exact role is that's why they're on the team to do so. But the Leafs have started to use their top players a bit more on the penalty kill this year, right? And especially what Nealander, I've noticed is it's generally the final like 20 to 30 seconds of a penalty kill sequence where they're going to bring them out and try to match. And manufacture these extra opportunities. And it makes sense because towards the end of a power play, the team with the band advantage that they don't score can kind of become a little discombobulated.

You're not sure who's going to be out there. You're not weird combinations of players where you're trying to go from potentially four forwards, one defenseman, to figuring out how to get your regular rotation of D-Men out there. And there's all sorts of miscommunication and stuff. And I know he scored the one goal against the flames that way in that exact area. But I just love that idea of manufacturing additional opportunities. to get your best players out there in situations where they might be able to create sort of hidden sources of offense. And I just, that's someone to watch moving forward because the Leafs is starting to incorporate that a little bit more and other teams across the league

have as well. But I love, I love seeing the you're out there for the final 20 seconds of the penalty kill and just waiting to see if they're going to be able to turn, you know, this, this sequence where nothing's going on, all of a sudden into a chance out of nowhere, which is obviously incredibly valuable over the course of a game. Yeah. And over the course of the season, that matter. If you look at the numbers behind four check pressures for the leaps this year in the games that Corey's track for all three zones so far, he's in the fray for the team lead, which is unsurprising. Matthews, I think, is leading. Bertuzi might be second, but they're all, you could put them all in a basket together. So it fits the bill, right? Like, if you, if you want a,

you do want a penalty killer who can pressure the opposition and put, you know, the screws to them and make them uncomfortable, I don't think, you know, you'd find a handful of guys maybe better than him at doing that right now. And again, specifically harkening back to what I said about the way he uses his stick to kind of like, you know, tip pucks, get him loose and create these races. You know, that's kind of like a prime time situation for that, right? Especially even if the possession's established in your zone and he's in a penalty killing situation, you still want him out there kind of like probing and pressuring that defense with that active stick and looking for those opportunities. He's just generated so much stuff like that this year. It almost seems like it'd be crazy to not use

him in that capacity even more, you know, given how aggressive he's been. Well, you know what I was thinking when you were describing how he's kind of sometimes hip-to-hip with his defenders on the breakout and he's going back even further to get the puck and retrieve it and make sure that he has it before he breaks it out? That's when I think he's just at his absolute best and just hits a gear that's almost unmatched in the sense that when he's going and he's actively seeking out the puck, right? And he's like going to it. I understand that sometimes you want to maintain spacing and you don't want to clog up areas too much by having a bunch of players so closely together, right?

It makes it easier to defend when that's the case. But in these moments, particularly on the breakout or along the wall, like when he's going and instead of just waiting for the puck to come to him and hoping that someone else can make a play, he's the best player on the ice. I want to see him going and being like, I'm going to take this puck now and do something with it. And I think he did that a lot in that Florida series that they obviously lost as a team last year. But I thought he was the best skater on either team in that series where every time he was out there, it felt like he was building towards something. And he wanted the puck and he wanted to decide the play and create something. And he's been doing that pretty much all year this year, right?

Where there's no sort of passenger moments where he's kind of just waiting and hoping the puck comes to him. He's making a point of seeking it out or hunting it and going and getting it, whether the opposition has it or whether his own teammate has it, right? He's like, I want this puck now and I'm going to get it. Yeah. And his first few steps, like he takes this little trot when he gets possession, you know, these little tiny staccato little pumps to get himself going. They're just so explosive.

And that initial burst makes it so difficult for defenders to judge the speed that he's moving at. And he, you know, I think they're a handful of guys to meet you in the lead. they're probably overall faster than him, but I don't know that there are that many that can get to the top speed as quickly as he can. And it's that north, south, straight at you sort of approach with that amount of momentum and combined with the fact that he can keep that momentum going and continue those like short staccato bursts through the zone while he manipulates the puck and while he has it out with one arm. Like the ability to do both of those things at the same time, it's just, yeah, I mean, you're 100% right. You want.

the puck on his stick when he's that deep because he can build up that head of steam. And again, that is just such a difficult thing for defenseman to handle. And it's not something you can fix from gap. You almost have to find a way to gain enough momentum and time your approach to his breakout in a way that allows you to match his speed in reverse. And that's a difficult ask for anybody. But I 100% agree with you. And I think the creative ways that he's found to put himself in positions where he has momentum has been one of the most fun parts of watching him this season. All right, Jesse, I think this is as good a spot as any for us to take our break. And then when we come back, we'll pick things right back up and we'll keep discussing the

season Willie Nealander's having and breaking down all the cool stuff he's been doing out there along the way. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey PeeDocas. joined today by Jesse Marshall as we do our deep dive of Willie Neelander and the awesome season. he's having Jesse we spent the first half of the show focusing more so on the transition game and the rush element and how William Nealander has been creating offensively for the Leafs on the move. Now as we shift gears and focus more so in the second half of the show on his play in the offensive zone and how that's worked within the team concept stylistically for the Leafs, looking at his 5-1-5 numbers this year despite how good he's been.

They've remarkably been outscored 14 to 13. in those minutes. Now I think part of it is like half of those goals against came at the start of the year when he was playing with John Klingberg. And I think it's been well documented. What a defensive mess. That was part of it is just bad luck, right? You look at the PDO, you look at the on-night shooting percentage, say percentage. It's all lower than you'd expect. And so I'm not worried about that at all because all of those markers from shots to hide into chances to expected goals are all in the mid-50s and exactly where you'd expect to see based on watching him play and watching them dominate. They've also really stumbled upon a nice formula here. Finally, just putting pretty

Tuesday on that line with him and Tibera's, right? Finding that third line of that, third member of that line. And since they put them together, they've been really dominant and posting awesome 5-1-5 results. And I love you. You know, Frank Corrado, I sent this to you right before we started recording because yesterday we were chatting, kind of prepping for what we wanted to talk about here today and kind of stuff to watch on tape. And I was making the point to you of this set play that they've been running where Tiberis, who just wins, an ungodly amount of face-offs cleanly, right? I think he's winning like 61%, 62% of his draws this year. At 5-15, he just pulls it back cleanly. And whenever it's off the left circle in the offensive zone,

Nielander as a right shot lines up on the left hash, right? He quickly gets the jump, retrieves the puck and starts drifting towards the middle. And while that's happening, generally it's Morgan Riley as the left-shot defenseman kind of fills that space behind him and starts moving downhill towards the net. John Tavares himself after the face-off rolls towards and Edom provides himself with a tip option. And all of a sudden, they've created this little game down low where they have the numbers advantage they have the puck and they're immediately attacking off of the draw. And so often, like, we've beaten the horse already, right, in terms of like faceoffs

and the raw stats and whether they matter, how much they matter, all that stuff. But I think in these cases, situationally, where you actually have a purpose and then are executing off of it, they clearly do matter. and their ability to routinely set up plays off of that is a fun wrinkle and also something that's obviously very useful for them. So I kind of wanted to highlight that when we're talking about little traits and stuff we're seeing on tape that they're doing. It's really cool.

Yeah, Frank said it was another NHL team that called that play the Nielander. And it wouldn't say who it was, but his desktop background had the Penguins logo on it saying we can surmise from there. But that's Jake Gensel, right? They put Jake Gensel in that spot on the left side and let him run laterally across. said it's Chris Lattang that's doing the pressuring down. And Sidney Crosby, who's moving down to the side of the net. And it's exactly in play.

I think they put the puck in Gensel's hands less and ask him to decoy run over there and try to get open for a one-timer. But it's the premise. It's exactly the same. And you see a lot of teams have similar type. The Dallas is another one than anything does this quite a bit. They'll move guys around and try to get that walk across the slot on the left side whenever they can. But yeah, that's entirely born out of the Nealander skill set and them, you know, sort of, I think popularizing it maybe is the word we'll use for other teams to sort of borrow.

But, you know, we'll get into the offensive zone stuff. But, you know, any time you give him the opportunity to load up, you know, you see him lean back on that stick and put all of his weight on it. And he really does let his stick do a lot of the work, you know, which when you love to see, but when he really really, leases from those areas in between the circles, it's just so volatile and so hard to follow for a goalie. He hides everything he's doing really well. Yeah, let's get it to the offense zone. We've already, I think, hinted out a lot of it. You mentioned the plays where he works up the wall and he's working towards the blue line and he's surveying the entire time.

The cutbacks he does off of those where sometimes he'll bring it across, right, as he goes laterally across the blue line on his back end. but sometimes he'll just plant his foot and spin right back and then if he's got the step on you he'll bury that shoulder and take it towards a net and that's almost just as i mean that's obviously a really fun play to watch and it's been a very productive kind of a trademark of his um but he's been just burning defenders off that like he's such a powerful skater especially in that area the ability to go from almost like lowing you to sleep where he's slowing down he's just gliding and then all of a sudden he's in that top gear is why it works the way it does. I think that's kind of the play that I noticed more,

that most that he's been utilizing this season to get to those slod driving plays that we sort of reference to the top of the show. Yeah. You know what? They have like those trackers they put on sharks, right? You can go on websites and see where the sharks been and how far it swam and where it is. I would love that for William Linder. I would love a tracker of where he goes in the offensive zone and what his paths to

the scoring areas are because they're, I got to imagine they're among the most creative and weird of any NHL forward. You know, you mentioned this earlier, but to kind of touch back to what you said about like wowing up in the zone and kind of that start stop, you know, I think you nailed it when he said he's inviting a physical engagement there, right? The moment that you step to him and you try to initiate contact while you're at that stop is the moment he's going to spin off you and take you wide and go to the net. So that's, you know, to me, that's a move that's almost, you know, begging for someone to engage with him physically in some level, because it gives him that ability to use that quick burst in those first few steps to just work right off of that

check and spin off and boom, you're gone. So, you know, there's a lot of changing of momentum, right? I think that's the key. This is not just, we focused on, you know, the speed that he can gain, the bear down he has where he lowers that shoulder and drives, it keeps those feet moving. But there's just as much tempo changing in the offensive zone where, you know, we see him use that speed in different ways where it's start, stop, or, you know, he slows down, he starts a quick drive in from the top of the point and then slows down to molasses by the time he's lowered the goal line, and is drawing everyone into him. His line mates are sitting wide open behind them, right? So it's the mastering of when to use the speed. What's possession is established?

I think combined with, you know, again, some of that just raw patience that you see from guys who routinely score 40 goals. And they're outweighing everybody. They're forcing the defensemen to make the first move. They're lulling the defensemen into like lying prostrate on the ice. I mean, all these clips were showing on screen. You'll see defensemen falling in all of them because they're out of ideas. You know, he's waited into the last minute to make his mood and drawn them to the ice surface, right? that that you know it's it's the combination of the tempo and that patience that makes it work and makes it frankly a lot of fun to watch him he it is torturing to be a defenseman in those situations and watch that puck stay on his stick for as long as it does sometimes

you know he throws a lot of people down to the ice in desperation yeah this oh i mean the game against the flames the season where he like he was just on another one pretty much the entire game, right, where he scores the sick goal in the top, then he scores a penalty, the goal in the short-handed, then he sets up a play from behind the net. But it over time, it didn't even result in the goal, but he just, just, watch his clip, just put McKenzie Weger, who moves really, really well, just into a torture chamber. Like, he just, he spins him around, then he buries the shoulder here, takes him to the net out wide, like, he just, by the end of this, like, please, just let me out of here. I don't want to make part of this one-on-one anymore. And

and just the ability to sequence, right? We talk about kind of stacking plays or sequencing them together. Like he's such a master at that where he sets you up and then he builds off of it throughout the sequence. You mentioned also his movement in the offensive zone and how he kind of like probes around and gets lost a little bit. I've really enjoyed the routes he's been taking in the zone this year where I think he's been sort of working that inner funnel really well this year, even as a winger where he'll get lost. but then he'll work his way back up between the dots, come up high in the zone, umbles filled out like Nathan McKinnon, high three-on-two spot, where he makes himself available as a shot pass option and extends the play there.

If the pass doesn't come, then he worked his way back down into the inner slot, then he gets lost again and kind of rinse and repeat and do it all over again, right? And so, especially with him and Bertusian and Tavares, they've been so good at control in the puck down low, right, working the puck behind the net, cycling. I mentioned that he's top 15 in the league. in cycle chances, I think that's kind of part of why that is, right? They're able to just build on these sequences. There's been a couple of shifts this year where like you'd have four or five grade A chances over the course of a 30 second offensive zone shift

and the danger level of them is just like progressively building and building as a time goes on. If you're a defenseman or a forward and you're covering William Neelander and you see him pivot to head towards the blue line, your best course of action is inaction. Don't do anything. Back up. Right. That's that. Turn around and get ready again. Yeah, go back towards the net. Because he's not, I mean, you know, that's not a good, following him has been a pretty, a pretty fruitless endeavor this year for most people. But we also, we talked about how, and this is why he puts you on such a compromising position.

I mean, not only would it, I'm sure your coach wouldn't be very happy if you did that. But also, like, his shot is such a weapon that you don't necessarily want to just let him be hanging out at the top of that high three on two with plenty of time and space to pick you apart either, right? like that's very dangerous to do but you're right if you follow him up there you know that he's just going to be coming back right where you left so um you got to be i guess ready for for that and not just be like mindlessly following him because he's moving away from the net yeah 100% and then there's always that freedom that defensemen have to like trail right and and chase somebody down and and understanding is their forwards going to fill in backwards for them um but he wants you to follow him right i mean this is his closest to positionless forward hockey as i think you'll ever

get. I mean, he's not locked in to any side of the ice. I mean, if you look at these clips, he's making full laps. I mean, he's making, like, it's the Daytona 500, you know, and it's all to find the middle. And if it's not there, he just keeps sitcom and laterally cross the blue line and down the other side. And, you know, until that lane is there, he's going to keep going. And they're long offensive zone possessions. And if you're out of, you know, if you step out of where you should be a little bit and you start following him, your tongue's going to be hanging out by halfway through the shift. Right. That is, he's taking people on walks.

But I, you know, we talked about this on this show before, Demetri, like that working against the grain, right? And heading the opposite direction everybody else is. I can't stress enough how important that is to his overall process. It gives him a longer space to build up speed, and you never see him fruitlessly head up there. It's always with a purpose, right? It's always to gain momentum, to keep his momentum, you know, to draw people out of position.

You end up with these situations where you can visibly see the other players on the ice looking at each other. Is it my turn? Like, do I pick them up now? Like, where does my responsibility begin in years end? because he's transcending my assignment into your assignment. I don't know what to do with that. It creates a distressing, I think, situation for opposing defenses,

but it's to me the most critical part of what he's been able to accomplish this year. It's the motor that keeps everything for him in the offensive zone going. Well, and I think that's such a great point you made about the sort of positionless forward hockey. And that's why it's so funny that the start of the year was a big talking point coming out of camp. It was like, oh, they're going to try Willie Nielander at center right now. It's like, oh, who is he playing with? What wing position is he playing? Like, how are they using them?

It's like, it doesn't really matter because he's almost occupying all three of them at the same time. Right? Like, I guess you have Tavares out there to win the draws we talked about and sort of play that more traditional center role in that case. But for the most part, once you get into the sets in the offensive zone in particular, like he's in that middle of the ice, working that interfinal. the center more than anyone else is, right? Like so and then and then he'll go along the wall. He'll work it back up to a point.

He'll go behind the net. Like it's just always constant motion, constant flowing. And that makes it so difficult to mark him. And especially as we talk so much this season about Ian's own coverage and zone versus man to man and all that stuff. Like it creates that type of motion. That reason of why we love it so much when the abs execute it a couple of years ago and really bring it into in vogue.

The reason why we, we highlight it and talk about it so much is because. because it creates all sorts of miscommunication, breakdowns, blown coverages, right? Because it's like at some point, especially if you're talking about a 40, 50 second offensive zone shift, at some point someone is going to cover the wrong guy or follow him when he's not supposed to or not follow him, like something is going to break down in that coverage and then he'll make you pay for it. Right. And so that's why that's the biggest benefit of this sort of motion offense that we love to talk about on the show. Yeah. And we've, this is what we've talked about it with the puck on his stick. Like, that's been our focus. But like off puck, we're seeing the

exact same thing, you know. And I think that sometimes, you know, he's mastered sort of the understanding of when he needs to bail, right? The last possible second that he can linger in a spot before he's got to get going and go help. You know, there's a lot of times where that puck gets north, a wall battle up the ice on the wall opposite of side of the ice that he's on. He just waits. You know, it's not his battle. He's not going to contribute anything from his position to that fight. But if he stays back behind the goal line and hangs out in that zone a little bit longer and he knows when he needs to pull the plug, the puck has found him in those situations a bunch. There's a number of talented players on the Toronto team that have their heads up and know where

he is. And oftentimes he's in a spot that the defense just has absolutely no idea. And that especially is true on the power play. This is all though, like, you know, for the most part, driven by traveling some sort of distance to get to a spot where nobody else is. And that movement, again, is the core and key of all of this. And even when he doesn't have the puck, his feet are moving and he's relocating himself and moving out of position, there's not a lot of, you know, sitting around in the circle and waiting for that one time or opportunity. He's making it happen on his own.

And sometimes that means skating up by side of the frame, going below the goal line, going off puck in an extreme way. But you've seen so many times where he scored a goal this year or had a grade A scoring chance on the doorstep because he hung around in a spot a little longer or took an unconventional route to get there, so to speak. It's not just when he has the puck on a stick. This movement transcends like every part of his game, right? This is a common theme throughout everything he's doing in the offensive zone is he's making himself either available or unavailable depending on what the situation calls for. Yeah. Oh, I love it. We're watching all. It's just so beautiful to see. It's, it's hockey at its finest in the audience. I mean, you literally, honestly, Dimitri, you look at these clips sometimes. You think, is that Eric Windros? Like, is, who is wearing 88? Like, it's not that old style, like, you know, power forward way of, like, bowling everybody over. But the, you look at him, dip that shoulder down and gain that momentum. And it's, man, like, this is, this is very direct hockey. It's a very direct hockey. It is very in your face hockey. And it is a, it is a very in your face hockey. And it is a, it is a, it is a, it is a little. And it is a. a very direct approach to creating offense. And he's doing it, you know, right in people's faces.

And, you know, for whatever that the sort of perceptions or adages of him were, you know, in years prior, I think you could probably throw them all in the garbage because this, you have to have a very specific body size, skating style, et cetera, to be able to do this and make, you know, some really big, talented skating. defense can look really foolish. I love the, I love the fact that he just has no regard for, for your defensive reputation or ability. Like, during that Star's game, he was just actively seeking out of Mira Hayeskin,

and who's as good as it gets in a one-on-one defense with his ability to kind of stick with you with his skating on the edges and then, you know, work the poachek. And he was just, he was going at him as if he was some HAL call up, right? And it's just like, that's a testament to the level he's playing at and also just like how confident it is, but how good he is. He backs it up with his play, and it's all well-deserved. You know, you mentioned the power play a little bit. Obviously, it's been very productive. They're six in goals per hour there, and the artillery they have is clearly phenomenal, right? When they stack it up with all their top players, you mentioned the motion as well, and I do like that.

I don't like when that motion brings them to having him and Matthews on both on the side where neither of them can one time it, right? as one right shot and one left shot. And then I think it kind of stagnates a little bit. Obviously, Matthews his wrist shot and his ability to kind of come downhill and rip it off with that curl and drag is a trademark of his. But I just think that sometimes when it gets a little stagnant or bogs down, that's generally when it's the case. I love when they have them both of their one-time wings,

when they have Mariner on the goal line as the kind of passer from there. Tavares obviously net front slash bumper and then Morgan Riley up top working the point. I think when it's there and the puck's moving, it's almost unstoppable. You're at their mercy in terms of what scoring chances they're going to get. And if the guy either makes the shots or miss the shots, there's nothing you can really do as the penalty kill when they're in that position. So that's when I think they're their best. And I like it when they do that, when they kind of get that motion going and then get away from that, I like it a little bit less.

But maybe that's kind of you just have to live with that because that's all part of this sort of offensive zone motion mentality that we've just been praising here for the past 10 minutes. Yeah. No, I think it's it. You have to take the good with the bad, right? But I do agree with you. Stagnin is probably the right word for it, right? Because you lose that cross-ice option, which is really the point of the movement, right? It's to create this red sea lane in between the circles, this lateral one-time or opportunity that just doesn't exist organically anymore and you kind of skated your way out of it, right? So that doesn't mean there aren't lanes available and you can't get it to the front of the net or you can't get it to the side of the net or the point. But that's a big part of what they want to do is to have that cross-feed option available. And if it's not there. You know, like you said, I think things kind of, um, crawl a little bit, uh, to a halt, unfortunately. Okay, Jesse. Well, I think we've done this justice. I was really excited about this one. And I think we've hit all the main points that I wanted to, um, we're going to have, I'm going to put up a full like probably 10 to 50 minute mixtape of his plays the season on the YouTube channel. So if you want some more examples of what we're talking about here, you can obviously

watch along this episode with us on the YouTube channel. There's Hockipedia cast. You can also watch the Willie Nealander mix up post. You got a written version. We're really, we're really hitting all of our bases here. Yeah, unlocked, by the way, to make it treat. So you don't need a subscription to read this one. If you want to check it out, it's got a, it's on McKeon's, I tweeted it out, and you don't need a, it's open for everybody right now. Okay. Well, tell the listeners then a little bit about it just to, I mean, it's kind of a, yeah, yeah, instead of people. Yeah, no, it's, it's most of what we talked about today. And it's identifying those examples of him getting north in the offensive zone to get

south, some of the unconventional routes he's taking to beat defensemen, a lot of that one-touch puck stuff that we've talked about where he's making little tip plays or pitch plays with the puck to just chip it five feet in front of them and create a race. Kind of grabbed all those examples in video for your digestion and enjoyment. So really sort of top the bottom view of a lot of the stuff we discussed today and how he's making it at work on a higher level. I love it. Well, you've got a bunch of video examples there as well, but also the written word is still alive and well. And so if anyone needs to learn that way, all the power to you, go check that out. Like I said, you can watch us on YouTube and watch along these video episodes with you. Jesse, we did the Penguins in the beginning of Malkin a couple weeks ago. What's our next one in a couple weeks when we get back together? You're saying you all wanted to really do a deep dive on Logan Cooley? Yeah, I think we're going to head to the desert and check out Logan Cooley. about good skating and a fleet footed forwards. I think that's a natural place to go. So

Pittsburgh kid getting it done out west. I think it's a good place for us to jump into. I know you love those. Yes, Maitre. Yeah, I was going to say, as anyone listens to the show this season knows, you don't have to twist my arm to get me talking about the coyotes. So we will certainly do that. I'm looking forward to it. And I've got one more plug here on my end before we get out of here. As we talk about near the end of pretty much every show these days, the hot Acupediaocast Discord server. If you're not in there yet, I don't really know what you're waiting for. I keep talking about it because I truly believe in it. It's an awesome community that we're building there. Jesse's in there. I'm in there. A lot of the regulars who appear on the show are in there.

A lot of listeners who listen to the show like yourself, hopefully, are in there. We've got great conversation going on every night when there's games happening. People are posting their observations, anecdotes. Then there's things they're seeing, things they're wondering about. And then of course, we've started doing mailbags to close the week as well and we're soliciting questions from there so if you're wondering about whatever it can be a very sort of niche uh stats related question or it can be kind of a bigger picture theoretical one all questions are welcome we've got a bunch of channels in there now uh breaking up a conversation into various topics so whatever your interests are in the game of hockey there's some for you there and even if you don't want to necessarily say anything but you

just want to lurk that's great too uh we welcome everyone so the invite link is in the show notes. You can join there. If you can't find it or you're having trouble with it, feel free to message me and reach out, and I will get you in there. And you can join us and be part of the community that we're building there.

It's really awesome. So I'm proud of it, and I'm looking forward to seeing it continue to blossom and flourish as the season goes here. So that is going to be it for today's show. This was a blast doing this deep dive with Jesse. We'll have them on again soon. Thank you to everyone for listening to us,

and we'll be back with plenty more of the HockeyPediocast. as always streaming on the SportsNair Radio Network.