Toronto Maple Leafs: William Nylander scores first goal of season

It was a long time coming for Wiliam Nylander who scored his first goal of the season for the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Minnesota Wild.

There was no doubt what celebration William Nylander was going to use when he scored his first goal of the season for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

After only two points in his first 11 games this season, Nylander finally got the monkey off his back scoring his first of the season against the Minnesota Wild. It has been an excruciating time for the Leafs forward considering all the attention on him since signing his new contract.

The goal came in the second period with the Leafs and Wild tied at two and Nylander came from behind the net and got it past Devan Dubnyk who attempted a poke check giving room for Nylander to snipe it short side.

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Playing alongside Auston Matthews and Andreas Johnsson seemed to do the trick for the 22-year-old who has struggled to get things going after missing the first two months of the season. You started to sense the frustration for Nylander and Mike Babcock as the Leafs juggled the lines various times in order to try and get him out of his slump.

Going into the game it was clear that Nylander was starting to show his unhappiness with the lack of scoring and like he’s been doing for the last bit, Babcock tried to put water on the fire.

"“When you come back and you have an expectation for yourself, and then it doesn’t go so good, it puts pressure on you,” Babcock said of Nylander to reporters. “So how do you handle that? Don’t get in your own way … just come and play and compete real hard.“You get one to go in, and it probably goes in off your butt … and it’s amazing how the weight of the world comes off. That’s what we’re hoping.”"

Now it will be interesting to see how this goal sparks Nylander going forward, you have to think it takes some pressure off of him but now he needs to find a way to build off of it.

With Frederik Andersen and Garret Sparks out of the lineup, the Leafs are going to have to pick up the slack especially offensively since the team might have to rely on Michael Hutchinson for the next few games.

What did you think about Nylander’s goal? Do you think this can help him regain his confidence? Let us know in the comments below.