from Steve Simmons of the Toronto Sun,

William Nylander is like buying furniture from IKEA with the instructions somehow missing from the package.

You know you have all the parts — you see them in front of you — you just have no real idea of how to put it all together.

Nylander was not the reason why the Maple Leafs blew a 5-1 lead Monday night and lost in rather embarrassing fashion to the hapless but growing Ottawa Senators. But bigger picture, away from this messy defeat, away from the somewhat offence-first style of the North Division, his lack of impact in games has become a serious issue for the Leafs.

He’s not alone. The captain John Tavares, Nylander’s centre on the Leafs’ second line, the fifth-highest-paid player in the National Hockey League, is struggling alongside Nylander. Their line, even with new addition Zach Hyman, seems rather lost. Sheldon Keefe is nothing if not an equal-opportunity coach.

Play well and you get ice time. Don’t play well, and it’s cut considerably. Nylander is 152nd in the NHL in ice time for forwards. That tells you what Keefe thinks of his play. Tavares is 90th among forwards in time on ice per game — hardly what GM Kyle Dubas envisioned when he and the club committed $77 million over seven years for Tavares and, months after that, signed Nylander for just under $7 million a year. That’s more money than anyone on the Boston big line of Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand are paid. And more than Nathan MacKinnon, Brayden Point, Johnny Gaudreau, Patrik Laine … We could go on.

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