Another terrifying piece of news: The Toronto Maple Leafs received yet another heartbreaking piece of news as the head coach and William Nylander confirmed…

Another terrifying piece of news: The Toronto Maple Leafs received yet another heartbreaking piece of news as the head coach and William Nylander confirmed…

Another horrifying update: William Nylander and the head coach confirmed yet another devastating piece of news for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Sheldon Keefe, the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, has previously approached William Nylander with tough love. However, for a while it appeared like the star forward had moved past the whip cracking.

That proved not to be the case on Saturday when the New York Rangers’ Alexis Lafreniere scored the game’s first goal, forcing Nylander to sit out the rest of the first period by the head coach.

In an attempt to thwart Rangers defenseman Adam Fox’s opportunity, Nylander left the zone during the play, which set up Lafreniere’s goal.

In the days and weeks preceding the match, Keefe emphasized that the defensive performances of Nylander, Tyler Bertuzzi, and Max Domi in the freshly assembled second line haven’t been as strong as he would have wanted. The coach was worried about the direction things were headed, even though the trio was scoring goals and the underlying statistics indicated that they were giving up more opportunities than they were getting.

Keefe had a meeting with them the day before the team defeated the Rangers 4-3 in a shootout, which infuriated the coach when Nylander committed his mistake on Saturday.

“I probably wouldn’t have been as sensitive to it the other day if it weren’t for the fact that we had the meeting just the day before,” Keefe said. Every error is unique. Some have good intentions, but the play doesn’t go as you want it to, but sometimes something goes wrong because the person intentionally steps outside the system’s framework, and that’s what happened the other night, in my opinion.”

The Leafs don’t want Nylander to cheat on his defensive responsibilities in order to gain credit for his offensive contributions, even though he made amends with a goal later in the contest.

NaturalStatTrick.com indicates that the Bertuzzi-Domi-Nylander line has played 85:15 together at 5-on-5 and has an anticipated goal percentage of 36%. They have been on the ice for seven goals for and six goals against, despite all of this.

Keefe said of Nylander, “In general, there’s less tolerance from my end, such as that one on William.” “It might be him or someone else. However,

Given that I had spoken with that person expressly about those kinds of topics, I spoke with a little more tact.”

When the Leafs play the Boston Bruins on Monday, the three of them will open the game together. However, you have to question whether Keefe is looking to pull the gun and make a change if the line doesn’t get better.