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Leafs forwards William Nylander and Mitch Marner were front and center in the gold medal game between Canada and Sweden at the 2017 IIHF World Championships on Sunday.
Sweden broke Team Canada’s three-year winning streak at the Worlds with a 2-1 shootout victory at Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany and Nylander was named the tournament MVP for leading Tre Kronor with 14 points (seven goals and seven assists) in 10 games.
Toronto’s 2014 top pick was also selected to the tournament All-Star Team along with Canada leading scorer Nathan MacKinnon and defenseman Colton Parayko, Russia’s Artemi Panarin and Andrei Vasilevskiy and Germany’s Dennis Seidenberg.
The Leafs future on display, as Mitch Marner is stopped by Henrik Lundqvist in Sweden’s 2-1 shootout victory over Team Canada on Sunday and Tournament MVP William Nylander tackles Lundqvist in celebration.
Henrik Lundqvist makes the game-winning save for Team Sweden, gets tackled by William Nylander #IIHFWorlds pic.twitter.com/jgFagRlKOU
— Brady Trettenero (@BradyTrett) May 21, 2017
Marner assisted on Ryan O’Reilly’s power play goal to tie the game, giving the rookie a dozen points (four goals, eight assists). The 20-year-old winger thoroughly impressed head coach John Cooper and teammates with his scoring ability.
“I didn’t know what to expect. (Marner) kind of looks like a little nerdy kid, but he’s not at all.… MacKinnon said to Aaron Vickers of the Athletic earlier this week. He’s unbelievable. He’s going to be one of the best passers in the game for a long time. I didn’t know how good he was until playing with him here. He’s going to be a great, great playmaker for a long time.…
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The NHL Draft Combine will take place in Buffalo, NY in early June and will go far in helping the Leafs determine who they will select in the 2017 Draft in Chicago on June 23rd.
Unlike the last three drafts when Toronto selected in the top 10, the Leafs making the playoffs resulted in them selecting 17th overall.
The draft rankings prior to the combine are more fluid than in the last two drafts after the consensus top picks Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier, which could mean that teams who have specific needs could more easily move up if they have targeted a particular player.
If defense is where Toronto is looking to add, names such as Timothy Liljegrin, Juuso Valimaki and Miro Heiskanen may require a swap of draft picks, but if the Leafs find the right combination of character and ability in Cal Foote, Nicolas Hague, Urho Vaakainainen or Cale Makar, they may stay put at #17.
The picture will be more clear in the next few weeks.
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Some fun observations about the Stanley Cup Playoffs, commercials, pretzels and salad dressings on the latest episode of "Off The Post" with Russ Cohen and Anthony Mingioni
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