Watch: Nylander bails on play; scared to get hit
Three and a half games into the series and we were still waiting for Nylander to do something notable. We finally got that something notable, unfortunately, it was not a good thing. With zero points in the first 3 games, it's not the first thing someone would want to be noted for doing.
With 3.5 minutes left in the second period, Nylander received a pass from Rielly on a rush. The puck slipped off of his stick and trickled down into the corner. Nylander was making an effort to get to the puck until he looked up and saw Tampa defenseman Erik Cernak about to engage him once he got to the corner. As soon as he saw Cernak approaching and bracing for a hit, Nylander slowed up and poked at the puck instead of using his speed to be in and out of the corner before Cernak even got there. Nylander then took slow strides towards the bench to play it off as though he was out of gas.
If I was in Keefe's position after seeing that, like the TNT commentators mentioned, I would've benched him the rest of the game. I guess it's a good thing Keefe didn't though as Nylander scored back-to-back goals in the third to at least contribute something to the series. Maybe Keefe had a talk with him between periods to light a fire under his ass or maybe he realized he should've tried harder for the puck. Either way, at least he got the goose egg off the board and maybe the floodgates will open for him the rest of the way.
| POLL | ||
MAI 9 | 419 ANSWERS Watch: Nylander bails on play; scared to get hit If you were Sheldon Keefe, how would you have reacted to this play? | ||
| Stern talking to | 119 | 28.4 % |
| Bench him for the rest of the game | 140 | 33.4 % |
| Bench him and then scratch him for Game 5 | 79 | 18.9 % |
| Nothing. He knows Willy's style of play | 81 | 19.3 % |
| List of polls | ||
