Alex Nylander is probably hoping next season features far less driving from Wilkes-Barre to Pittsburgh and back. After nine games with the Penguins (and copious emergency recalls) this past season, has he eliminated such a circumstance from his future entirely?
This is the case that, while the pending restricted free agent remains an unproven commodity, he has earned his way onto the Penguins' NHL roster heading into the 2023-24 season.
The question surrounding Nylander's impact has never been about his offensive tools, but whether or not he'd be able to round out the rest of his game to the point that he's not one-dimensional. Before this season began, the two things that kept coming up as to why he hadn't made it to the NHL with the Penguins yet were his defensive work and pace of play. The latter item isn't necessarily just speed, but the quickness in which he processes the game and makes decisions with and without the puck on his stick.
A sample much larger than nine games is needed to draw any major conclusions, but those two components didn't stick out in a negative manner for him. In fact, I'd even argue he was a positive influence in that regard.
Before getting to that, let's get a general overview of his 2022-23 season.
Nylander, 25, spent the majority of the season in the AHL, where he scored 25 goals and had 50 points in 55 games. In early March, he was recalled on an emergency basis and made his Penguins debut due to the absences of Bryan Rust and Mikael Granlund. He certainly didn't look like it was his first NHL game in nearly three years.
He did, however, score just one goal to go along with one assist in nine NHL games, several of which he was stationed on a line with Evgeni Malkin and Jason Zucker. He'll need to be slightly more productive if he is a full-timer next season, no doubt, but knowing the skill he brings to the table leads me to believe that will come around. What's more important in this context is how the Penguins performed when he was on the ice. The answer to that question is very, very well.
Nylander played 110 minutes with the Penguins. All but two of those minutes were at full-strength. During his 5-on-5 ice-time, the Penguins outscored opponents, 5-4, while taking 62.8% of the shot attempts and controlling 64.2% of the expected goals, per Evolving-Hockey. Again, small sample here, but his on-ice expected goals share was the highest mark of any Penguins skater to play at least an hour this season. In fact, of all NHL forwards to play at least 100 minutes at 5-on-5, that mark ranked fifth. Not kidding.
Breaking that down further, we can see the Penguins did a very good job of creating looks from the net-front, slot and top of the right circle when he was out there. Their expected goal rate during that time was 27% higher than league-average, per Hockey Viz:
HOCKEY VIZ
The darker the red, the more unblocked shot attempts were taken in that area, relative to league-average. The darker the blue, the fewer unblocked shot attempts were taken in that area, relative to league-average.
And defensively, they did a superb job of limiting quantity, but also limiting quality, as evidenced by that giant pool in the most dangerous area of the ice:
HOCKEY VIZ
The darker the red, the more unblocked shot attempts were taken in that area, relative to league-average. The darker the blue, the fewer unblocked shot attempts were taken in that area, relative to league-average.
Now, Nylander wasn't the sole driver behind those results, but I'd argue regardless of how much he did or didn't influence them, he wasn't causing the team to get cratered when he was out there. That's obviously important due to the previous concerns around his game and, again, also knowing he has the offensive tools that should help him get on the scoresheet at an acceptable clip.
Something that surprised me was how effective Nylander was on the forecheck. His profile as a player wouldn't lead you to believe that's one of the strong suits of his game, but it's hard to argue with the tape. Here's a look at what I mean from a game against the Red Wings in Detroit earlier this month:
In this sequence, Nylander was the Penguins' F3, or the furthest forward from the puck. The role for F3 is to hang a little higher in the zone and do their best to prevent easy exits for the opposition after the first wave of the forecheck is beat, as well as read the play, looking for opportunities to apply pressure.
Here, both Ryan Poehling and Danton Heinen were caught along the wall in the corner as the puck was wheeled behind Detroit's net. Nylander was at the top of the right circle once the reversal happened, but he knew the Red Wings would have plenty of free ice to maneuver and start their breakout if he didn't step up, so that's exactly what he did. He made a beeline toward Moritz Seider as the defender emerged from behind the net on his backhand. In quite calculated fashion, Nylander made a hard cut at the last second before reaching Seider, instead opting to play the pass. He managed to block it, allowing the Penguins to maintain pressure.
Nylander then worked his way to the slot as Poehling and Heinen battled for possession. The Red Wings ultimately nabbed the puck and once again tried to reverse the flow by going behind the net. Nylander recognized this right away and was able to seal off the far side of the net, forcing the puck carrier to backtrack right into more pressure. He did a good job of continuing to hound the carrier, but ultimately got a little overzealous and took a penalty. Everything aside from the penalty was golden.
Knowing how and when to angle the puck carrier is largely what makes an effective forechecker. Nylander seems to have a pretty good grasp on this. Check out his work against the Canadiens in which he directly prevented two exits and then forced another retreat:
That's really impressive. And annoying to play against. His positioning, stick work, quickness and attention to detail were exquisite. And really, those are the kinds of things that will be required from him as a middle-six winger.
Here he is during the same game showing good jump and hustle, despite being flat-footed, to stymie another Canadiens exit and keep the Penguins on the attack:
Another element of his game shown in that sequence that won't be highlighted a ton in the remaining clips is his ability to put the puck in a good spot when forced to make little chip plays. It's most likely a result of his raw skill shining through, but whether it's a puck off the glass or wall, or a one-touch play through sticks and bodies, he tends to put the puck on a teammate's stick or in an area where they have a decent chance of retrieving it.
Now that we've seen how his forechecking played a part in his offensive impact, let's take a look at how his play with the puck paid dividends.
During the second period of his very first game with the Penguins, Nylander displayed some serious poise before picking up the secondary assist on Zucker's goal:
Immediately after a faceoff loss (which I somehow managed to cut out from the above clip), Nylander jumped up to forecheck and apply pressure on Erik Gudbranson below the goal line. The pressure itself wasn't necessarily Brandon Tanev-esque, but it was effective. Gudbranson was forced to rim the puck along the wall as he was knocked off balance and, as a result, the puck slowly made its way toward the intended target, only to be denied by a pinch from Marcus Pettersson.
Pettersson dished the puck down low to Nylander, who then established inside positioning, played through contact and baited Gudbranson out of position and to the perimeter before slipping a backhand pass right back where he came from. Malkin read off him perfectly by retrieving the slip pass and made a pass of his own to Zucker out front for the goal.
The one goal Nylander scored with the Penguins was actually made possible by his excellent transition defense in the neutral zone before sparking a quick counterattack. The skill he displayed afterward to bury the puck was obviously great, as well. Take a look:
If you watch any of the telestrations (I hope you watch them all), make it this one. Almost everything that can make him a positive contributor is evident. The neutral-zone work was awesome, but I can't decide what I like more: Nylander identifying the gaping pocket of ice after dishing to Granlund, or the sick move he made to buy time and create a shooting lane out of nothing before finding twine.
Plays like that were sorely lacking from the Penguins' third line all season.
Over time, I wouldn't expect Nylander to be some defensive menace out there, but so much of hockey is simply not screwing up. I didn't notice him screwing up much at all in his own zone, whether it was watching him live or upon the film review I did for this column. In the following clip, he recognized the Penguins' defensive coverage was a bit out of whack, so he made sure to track his man, Mika Zibanejad, all the way to the net. He ended up preventing an easy backdoor tap-in:
And in the final clip, Nylander didn't do anything that really stood out, but ended up making all the difference not only on the backcheck, but on the breakout, as well:
Because the Rangers had all three forwards bunched up on the strong side of the ice with their defensemen lagging behind the play, Nylander correctly took that as a chance to stray further from his side of the ice and collapse around the puck carrier, forcing a suboptimal pass wide that the Penguins quickly gained possession of. Once the puck was worked to Mark Friedman behind the net, Nylander made his way to his station at the right half-wall, making sure to survey the ice before the puck got to him so that he knew where his teammates were, as well as oncoming pressure.
The best part of the breakout is that, instead of facing the boards and receiving the puck in a rather poor spot to make a play, Nylander pivoted to keep his body facing the entirety of the playing surface and received the puck while his momentum was already taking him out of the zone. Even though he ran out of real estate and didn't have a teammate to move the puck to, he hung onto the puck and doubled back to create more time rather than relinquishing possession at the first sign of danger.
I don't know what's in store for the rest of Nylander's NHL career. What I do know is that he's taken major strides in his off-puck play. It's hard not to think he could be a serviceable option on the right wing of the third line next season. At worst, he'd be fine and affordable depth. Maybe that's just overreacting to a small sample, but I also know that this Penguins team needs to get younger heading into next season. He's not exactly a youngster anymore, but by their standards he's basically fresh out of the womb.
I also know that the Penguins are going to have to try and squeeze some value out of their depth contracts, and Nylander should fall in line with that. I can't see him getting any sort of significant raise on the $750,000 per season he was previously making at the NHL level. Something moderately richer than the two-year, $1.65 million ($825,000 AAV) contract P.O Joseph signed last offseason sounds about right to me.
Considering the giant strides he took over the past year, I'd try to keep pulling that eighth-overall pedigree out of him. I still see a fair bit of upside, and bringing him back would come as a relatively low risk.
