Craig Berube rewarded by his decision for William Nylander after early season meeting
William Nylander apparently requested more ice time from Craig Berube earlier this season and the results speak for themselves.
Nylander is currently averaging a little over 19 minutes of ice time per game this season.
It is a small step back from the 19:55 he averaged last year under Sheldon Keefe, but is still a big step up from his career average of 17:36.
Recently, Berube referenced the early-season meeting after putting Nylander on both powerplay units, calling it 'key' to get his ice time up.
The results seem to speak for themselves. In 22 games this season, Nylander has 14 goals and 10 assists for 24 points.
That puts the Swedish winger on pace for 52 goals and 89 points.
That goal total would blow away his current career high of 40, although he did hit 98 points last season with 58 assists.
Nylander was especially good throughout the month of November as Leafs Captain Auston Matthews missed most of the month with a mysterious injury.
In the nine games Nylander played without Matthews, he scored 11 points including 5 goals. He also eclipsed the 20-minute mark in ice time seven times.
That being said, there is one area of Nylander's game that Craig Berube would like to see some improvement in.
Through 22 games, Nylander has already taken 6 minor penalties, putting him on pace for the most penalty minutes of his career by far.
This is not conducive to team success and it also hurts his personal goal of playing more. After all, you can't play from the penalty box.
Hopefully, Nylander will cut down on his penalties and continue to score at this rate for the rest of the season.
In fact, he probably could stand to pick up a few more assists as well, boosting his point totals even higher.
Last season he averaged well over half an assist per game but he is just under half an assist per game this year, probably with a little bit of bad luck involved.
If that trend reverses itself, we very well could see him have a career year, a good reward for Craig Berube for his increased ice time.
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