|
Michael Nylander |
Games
|
Goals
|
Assists
|
Points
|
+/-
|
PIM
|
|
Regular Season
|
79
|
26
|
57
|
83
|
+14
|
42
|
|
Playoffs
|
10
|
6
|
7
|
13
|
+9
|
0
|
This one hurts. I know his ballerina-esque twirling gets on our nerves, I know his refusal to shoot makes you go prematurely bald, but losing Michael Nylander this offseason hurts, big time.
Look, don’t get me wrong here guys, I understand why it had to be done. I get that this guy is 34 years old right now (35 in October), and I get that signing him till he is 39 would be a move we would regret big time, but he was as large a part of the turnaround here as anyone else. And for the record, I too would have let him walk, but it doesn’t make the loss any easier to take.
What do you get with Nylander? Incredible vision, and an ungodly ability to navigate through the tightest of spaces without ever losing the puck. A superb ability to thread the needle, and an excellent wrister when he uses it.
Honestly Nylander may be one of the most under-rated players on our roster last year, and possibly in the entire NHL. keep in mind that Jaromir Jagr’s numbers went DOWN last year, yet Nylanders went up. Thats not an accident folks, hes a damn good player. Put him with even mildly competent wingers who can hit the net, and youll see 60 points easy from this guy. Place him with a guy like Alexander Ovechkin, and it is a downright scary combination.
He does however have his negatives, and it starts first and foremost with an unwillingness to shoot. Hes got tremendous puck control and accuracy. When he shoots, he hits the net, he just never seems to shoot! We ranger fans often joke that even during the shootouts he’ll try to pass the puck (he is a whiz on the shootout though) . Nylander last year, if im not mistaken, had a complete breakaway, and elected to pass the puck off to a trailing man. Yes…he’s that infuriating.
Nylander is also a very poor defensive player. He half-asses it out there when he is in his own zone, The Rangers first line was built solely to outscore and out puck-control the opposition, but it was necessary to have Straka or Hossa on that line as the other 2 simply dont play defense. So if youre looking for a defensively responsible guy, hes not your man.
Also, Nylander slows the game down to a crawl at times, and can often wasted 30% of your power play just trying to regroup. you’ve seen it plenty of times, where he has the puck, has a free dump in with a winger flying down the flank, but skate-in entry is denied. Rather than take the dump in, he will skate back to center ice, or his own blueline, and regroup for another skate in. He also often comes up on the rush on the near side, and stops on a dime, does a spin, and tries to find the trail man. He does it so often that if the other team does any scouting at all, its an easy pick-off for a rush against.
Regarding Nylanders puck control, he has an insane ability to hold the puck along the boards for long, long LONG stretches of times with these cut backs. He’ll go one way, lose a guy, then cut back, lose the guy, then cut back, etc looking for a play. If he is paired with guys that can use that time to get open (need good hockey sense), then youll get a TON of offense from this ability of his. If he is paired with guys who dont have good reads off of his moves, what youll get are tired guys who skate like crazy to try to get open, and then just end up wasting a full shift in the oppositions zone without having a single shot on goal.
So Nylander has some excellent pros, and some annoying cons, but im my opinion hes not necessarily a 100% product of Jagr, and his pros most definitely outweigh the cons so long as hes put with guys who look to shoot first.
Id let him walk, just like Glen did, but I know he is going to have a huge year playing with Ovechkin.
This concludes my reviews for last year. I hope you, at the very least, used it to kill some time this offseason (which by the way has just been brutal on me because of hockey withdrawal). Coming up in a few days, I will do my Eastern Conference predictions. I will NOT do any Western Conference stuff because frankly, I dont follow it nearly as religiously as I do with the East.
-Inferno
