Auston Matthews receiving more dangerous passes was in a large part due to William Nylander playing the net-front/low position on PP1 in 2019. Nylander excelled in the position because he was both an excellent passer and a scoring threat, second on the Leafs to Auston Matthews in 5v4 goals scored this season. In fact, Nylander scored 8 5v4 goals in 2019, exactly as many as John Tavares did in 2018, in 20 fewer minutes played.
Nylander replacing Tavares elevated the netfront position to more than just a player to whom to funnel passes to, aiming for deflections and shots in-tight. Instead, Nylander was able to turn it into a dual-threat because he was a better 5v4 passer in 2019 than Tavares was in 2018.
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When looking at total royal road passes, Nylander made 4 times as many royal road passes as Tavares, nearly half of his shot assists. Even when narrowing it down to just low chaos shot assists, Nylander still completed 14 royal road passes. To compare to Marner, who is considered the Leafs? best playmaker, Nylander?s 16 royal road shot assists were more than Marner?s in both seasons (11 in 2018, 9 in 2019).
