William Nylander's 72-Point Year Was the Most Underrated Story of 2025-26

The player nobody talked about enough

William Nylander scored 26 goals and assisted on 46 others in 59 games during the 2025-26 NHL regular season, finishing with 72 points on a team that went nowhere. It was the best full season of his career by points-per-game. It was the best season by any Leaf this year, by a margin. And because the team around him cratered and the Matthews injury swallowed the end of the calendar, almost nobody outside Toronto noticed.

Nylander is 29. He's signed through the 2031-32 season at an $11.5M AAV. When he signed that contract in January 2024, the Toronto sports radio consensus was that the Leafs had overpaid — that eight years was too long, that the money was too high, that he was a complementary piece to Matthews and Marner rather than a first-line driver in his own right. Twenty-six months later, that consensus looks bad.

What the numbers actually say

Points-per-game is the fastest way to read a season that ends early or gets interrupted. Nylander's 1.22 PPG in 2025-26 is the highest full-season pace of his career. Every year since his entry-level deal, he has trended up:

• 2022-23: 40 goals, 47 assists, 87 points in 82 games (1.06 PPG)
• 2023-24: 40 goals, 58 assists, 98 points in 82 games (1.20 PPG)
• 2024-25: 45 goals, 39 assists, 84 points in 82 games (1.02 PPG)
• 2025-26: 26 goals, 46 assists, 72 points in 59 games (1.22 PPG)

The shape shifts year to year — more goals one season, more assists the next — but the output has been remarkably stable. What changed in 2025-26 was the context. Marner was gone. Matthews missed roughly a quarter of the schedule. Linemates rotated every few weeks. Nylander produced through all of it.

The contract, revisited

In January 2024, Nylander signed an eight-year extension at $11.5M AAV, buying out his remaining year and tacking on seven more. It was the richest contract in Leafs history at the time and was roundly described as the ceiling of what a team could sensibly pay a second-banana winger.

The arithmetic looked tight. At $11.5M, Nylander was being paid roughly $140,000 per career point projected against his past production. The bet was that he would age into a 90-point player; the concern was that he would age out of one.

Two things have happened since. First, Nylander's production has continued to rise, making the $140,000-per-point number look increasingly low. Second, the league's salary cap has exploded. The upper limit was $83.5M when Nylander signed the extension. It is $95.5M this season, is projected to rise to $104M in 2026-27, and is projected further at $113.5M in 2027-28. That's a roughly 36% increase in the cap from Nylander's signing date to three years out — and his AAV is fixed.

Against a $95.5M ceiling, $11.5M is roughly 12.0% of the cap. Against a projected $113.5M ceiling in 2027-28, it's 10.1%. By the back half of his deal, Nylander will be a top-30 NHL scorer paid as if he were a top-90 NHL scorer. That is the definition of a bargain contract.

What he actually does on the ice

Nylander is the player the Leafs will need most in 2026-27 for a specific reason that has nothing to do with his goal totals: he creates offense without needing Matthews to be on the ice. Through stretches of this season, he was the only forward who could generate consistent zone time against opposing top lines when Matthews wasn't available.

His shot is elite. His release is among the fastest in the league. His skating, often understated in scouting reports for most of his career, has quietly become one of his biggest advantages — particularly his ability to enter the offensive zone with possession against a structured defense. Teams that load up on Matthews in 2026-27 will find that the puck comes back through Nylander on the next shift and punishes them anyway.

What he doesn't do

The honest critique of Nylander's game, which has followed him for a decade, is that he's a perimeter scorer. He doesn't drive hard to the net. He doesn't win many pucks in the dirty areas. His defensive zone play is improved from his early career but still grades below average for a top-six forward. In a playoff series, where the grading curve tightens, those limitations have historically cost him.

The difference at 29 versus 25 is that the perimeter scoring is now consistent enough — and cheap enough relative to his production — that the off-puck weaknesses don't functionally matter in regular-season play. They might matter again in April 2027 when the Leafs are (presumably) back in the playoffs and playing a structured Atlantic Division opponent. That's a known tradeoff and one the team has been making since 2016.

Why this matters for next season

The 2026-27 Leafs will ride Nylander harder than any Matthews-era team has ridden him. Matthews' knee will need management; Tavares is 36; Knies is still developing; whatever top-six winger arrives in free agency will need a 20-game ramp.

Nylander is the one sure thing. He is under contract, his production is stable, his price is locked against a rising cap, and he has shown in 2025-26 that he can carry the offense on his own shift without the rest of the top-six clicking. That's not a complementary player. That's a franchise centerpiece, same as Matthews — just the second one the Leafs have without paying second-franchise-centerpiece money.

The short version

Nylander's 1.22 points per game in 2025-26 was the best season of his career. His $11.5M AAV looks cheaper every time the cap rises. He carried the Leafs' offense through the worst regular season of the Matthews era and did it while the narrative around the team was about everything else. The best contract on the books is the one everyone wanted to tear up two years ago.

Cross-reference the cap sheet. Then cross-reference the player stats page. Then tell me who the Leafs' MVP was this year.