There have been a few stories stranger from the first round of the playoffs beyond William Nylander’s absence from the Toronto Maple Leafs lineup.
Seemingly healthy for Game 82 of the regular season on April 17th last Wednesday, he woke up the next morning ailing, and unable to suit up for any of the first three games of the playoffs. And while the Maple Leafs have surely missed his presence in the lineup, and the organization has remained surprisingly tight-lipped, we finally have answers as to what has gone wrong for the winger.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported Thursday morning that Nylander’s truancy from the lineup is due to “a migraine so severe that team doctors tested to see if he suffered a concussion.”
“One of the reasons for the secrecy around his situation is that an actual diagnosis has been hard to come by, whether it is a migraine, a concussion or something else that could affect that area,” he added.
As Friedman noted, Nylander suffered from migraines during the 2021-22 season, which forced him to wear a tinted visor for the start of the following campaign.
There’s hope that Nylander can suit up for Game 4 of their first-round series against the Bruins, and they’re going to need him. The Leafs and Bruins have exchanged blows, with Boston taking Games 1 and 3, while Toronto took Game 2.
It was an up-and-down season for Nylander, one in which he entered as a pending unrestricted free agent. He made out like gangbusters, scoring 21 goals and 54 points in his first 37 games of the year. His hot start saw the Leafs reward him with an eight-year contract paying him $11.5-million annually, a significant raise from the $6.9-million per-year deal he was on previously.
But Nylander’s numbers faded down the stretch, as he scored 19 goals and 44 points in his last 45 games. Still, these are respectable numbers, and the Leafs will hope he is healthy enough to draw in at some point during this series.
Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.
