The League: Nylander Guides Leafs to…

We expect a lot from each other,” Nylander said of the situation following the game. “We love each other, so we just push each other to have a high ceiling, I think it’s great.”

His message was exactly what his team and fan base (which included more than simply Marner) needed to hear. To win the Stanley Cup is really difficult (something you would think Leafs supporters would understand by now). There is no place for criticism about the officiating, the difficulty of an opponent, or the tyranny of tiny sample numbers. If you want the Cup, you have one option: win 16 games once the regular season concludes.

If you’ve been burying your head in the sand and haven’t kept up, the apex of the drama occurred on the Maple Leafs bench as the clock crept down toward a Game 4 defeat that would leave Toronto behind Boston 3-1 in their first round series. The following footage from Sportsnet went viral, and intrepid internet lip-readers extrapolated something along the lines of “Stop f—ing crying.” “This isn’t junior hockey,” stated Nylander, apparently to Mitch Marner.The Leafs secured an improbable Game 5 victory in Boston with Auston Matthews out of the lineup, and in Game 6, it was none other than Nylander who took Toronto to victory with two goals, including a superb effort

In a market defined by hysteria, Nylander appears unflappably calm, as if impervious to the seismic pressure the league’s greatest fan base heaps on its beloved Maple Leafs. For better or worse, the reward for Nylander’s efforts was what his fans dreaded the most: another Game 7 in Boston, the location of the organization’s greatest and most recent postseason misery. Nylander himself—perpetually resistant to this type of baggage—joked about it after the game last night.On the most recent edition of The Silky Mitte State, my co-host Connor Earegood and I went over some of the specifics of the latest bout of mania, including the bench argument from Game 4. For full episodes of the show, visit Spotify or Apple Podcasts: