Fan vote results for the best RWs; you'll be surprised to see where two Leafs ended up
Since the beginning of the off-season, Twitter user @JFreshHockey has been conducting fan-driven surveys. He's done everything from most annoying fan base to now voting on the top players at each position. Yesterday, he released the results of the top right wingers poll and it turns out the Leafs have two in the top 10.
Nikita Kucherov was voted the best right winger with an average rating of 6.8 followed closely by Mitch Marner (6.6) and Mikko Rantanen (6.4). Some of you may be surprised to know that the "overrated" William Nylander was voted the 10th best right winger in the league. Marner finished the season setting career-highs in points and goals with 97 and 35 respectively skating alongside Auston Matthews and Michael Bunting. With 3 years left on his current deal that sees him being paid $10.9M per season, Marner is only getting better and proving he is worth every dollar of his contract.
Nylander ranked 10th with an average rating of 5.0 after finishing the season with career-highs in goals and points as well (34G, 80P). At $6.9M per season, many people believe Nylander is overpaid and overrated, but based on fan results, he is clearly trending towards being underpaid.
Skating alongside John Tavares and an ever-changing left winger, Nylander had more productive nights than nights off. Yes, he still needs to be more consistent defensively as we all saw in round 1 against Tampa, but offensively he is producing at a high level.
If the Leafs could find a left winger that can be consistent playing with Nylander and Tavares and Nylander finds more consistency in his game, there is no reason to believe he can't elevate himself higher inside the top 10 right wingers next season.
Thanks to COVID and the flat cap, many fans believe that Marner and Nylander have been overpaid because of the lack of cap space the Leafs have had to make significant improvements to the rest of the roster. No one could have predicted either of those scenarios, but thankfully, the cap is expected to go through a massive upward trend in the coming seasons, and with the likes of Tavares, Brodie and Muzzin coming off the books within the next 3 years, the Leafs will have plenty of cap room to change the design of the team around Matthews, Reilly, Nylander and Marner.
| POLL | ||
JUILLET 30 | 831 ANSWERS Fan vote results for the best RWs; you'll be surprised to see where two Leafs ended up Do you think William Nylander is overrated or overpaid? | ||
| Overrated | 108 | 13 % |
| Overpaid | 151 | 18.2 % |
| Both | 174 | 20.9 % |
| Neither | 398 | 47.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
