One-on-one: Nylander hopes to be 'game changer' for Penguins

Last Wednesday morning, Alex Nylander was in Chicago getting ready to practice with the Blackhawks.

Nylander had spent the season to that point in the AHL with the Rockford IceHogs, working toward his first NHL game since the 2019-20 season.

About 30 minutes before the start of practice, Nylander said he was called into management's office, where he was told he had been traded to the Penguins.

"It was a bit of a surprise how it happened," Nylander told me in a phone interview on Monday. "I didn't know it was coming. But I just think this is really good for me, a fresh start here with a new team."

Nylander, 23, is a 6-foot-1, 192-pound right-handed shot who can play both wing and center. He was the No. 8 overall pick of the Sabres in 2016, and has 84 games of NHL experience under his belt -- 19 with the Sabres over his first three professional seasons, and 65 with the Blackhawks in the 2019-20 season. 

Nylander's father Michael played 920 NHL games over 15 seasons with the Whalers, Flames, Lightning, Capitals, Blackhawks, Bruins, and Rangers. Nylander's older brother William is in his seventh NHL season with the Maple Leafs.

Nylander was a rink rat as a kid. His father would take Alex and William to the rink for practices, where they would go out onto the ice together before the team practiced, then hang out in the players lounge and play ping-pong. Nylander was nine years old at the start of his dad's second stint with the Capitals from 2007-09, and has fun memories of spending time with the Capitals' stars.

"At a Christmas skate, I remember me and my brother were playing hockey," he said. "(Alex Ovechkin) stole my stick and my brother's stick and was hiding it. We tried to chase him down, but he hid it where we couldn't get it because we were so short."

Fellow Swede Nicklas Backstrom lived with the Nylanders when he first arrived in Washington. Backstrom was 19 and getting acclimated to North America, and Michael served as a mentor for Backstrom, but Backstrom also served as somewhat of a mentor to Alex and William.

"We would always want to play knee hockey or street hockey with him," Nylander recalled of Backstrom. "We forget that he has a busy schedule, I think he must have been so tired. I was always wanting to play hockey with him. Backstrom was awesome."

The Penguins assigned Nylander to their AHL affiliate in Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, and he didn't have much time to settle in before Wilkes-Barre's busy weekend. Nylander hadn't played in a game with Rockford since Dec. 21, with COVID protocols leading to postponed games and limited practice time. Nylander reported to Wilkes-Barre for practice on Thursday, and then went right into Wilkes-Barre's three-in-three weekend, with a game in Utica on Friday, and games in Hershey on Saturday and Sunday. 

"It was different, but I felt good out there, better than I thought," Nylander said of the challenge. "I was really excited to join a new team, I think it's going to be great."

Nylander skated on the left wing of Wilkes-Barre's top line, with Valtteri Puustinen on his right wing and either Sam Houde or Radim Zohorna as his center. He got time on Wilkes-Barre's top power play unit, and set up Puustinen's power play goal just 5:03 into his Penguins debut on Friday, a 6-5 shootout loss to the Comets, the top team in the league:

Nylander had a second primary assist in Friday's game, setting up defenseman Taylor Fedun with this great backhand pass:

Nylander nearly had a third primary assist in his debut off of this 2-on-1 with Houde, but Houde just whiffed on the shot:

The Penguins were shutout by Hershey on Saturday, 3-0, and perhaps the best chance the Penguins had of scoring all game was this Nylander attempt off of a pass from Zohorna:

Wilkes-Barre lost to Hershey 3-2 Sunday. Nylander picked up a secondary assist, teaming up with Anthony Angello and Zohorna for a power play goal.

"I think I played good," Nylander said of those three games. "Good for coming to a new team, learning the system and stuff like that. A great group of guys, they made it really easy for me to just come in and play my game. The coaches have been great. I still have to do better, but I thought I had a good couple of games there. I just have to build off that."

I asked Mike Sullivan on Thursday in Philadelphia about Nylander's game. He admitted that he wasn't very familiar with Nylander's game himself yet, but noted that Ron Hextall and the Penguins' scouting staff were excited about the acquisition. 

"They're really excited about his skill level, his potential to play the type of game that we're trying to play here in Pittsburgh," Sullivan said. "You know, he was obviously a real high pick. He has a lot of skill, he has real good offensive instincts."

It sounds like the Penguins believe that Nylander will have to improve defensively in order to get back to the NHL.

"He's going to get an opportunity to develop his overall game on both sides of the puck," Sullivan said. "I'm looking forward to getting more familiar firsthand with his game. But I know that our scouting department and Hexy in particular is very, very excited about the opportunity that we have with Alex to try to help him improve and get to the point where he can be an impact player at the NHL level."

If Nylander needs to improve his defensive game, it doesn't sound like it's for a lack of effort

"I like to make plays, to shoot the puck and work at both ends of the arena," Nylander said of his own game on Monday. "I work hard every day, every shift."

Nylander hasn't gotten to know Sullivan yet, but he's heard good things about the Penguins' coach. Nylander's father was teammates with Sullivan for parts of three seasons in Calgary from 1994-1996, and then played for Sullivan in 2003-04, Sullivan's first season as head coach for the Bruins. After Nylander got traded to the Penguins, he spoke with his father about that time playing with and for Sullivan.

"He said he was awesome," Nylander said of what his father told him. "Great guy, and a great, great coach. He coached the Bruins when they had a really good team and they did good. He said it was a great year. He liked him as a coach and he was a great player and a great teammate off the ice as well."

Nylander is hoping to get a chance to prove himself at the NHL level in Pittsburgh, something he says he "didn't really get the chance" to do with Chicago over the last two years. He didn't play at all last season, sidelined for the entire year after undergoing surgery to repair a torn meniscus in December 2020. Nylander said that his knee started feeling off that August, and he had already been training on it for three months, unaware that there was anything wrong with it. 

Going into the surgery, Nylander said his rehab could have lasted anywhere from 4-6 weeks to six months, and he wouldn't have any way of knowing the actual timeframe until after the surgery was done. He ended up on the longer side of those potential timeframes, sidelining him for the entire season.

"I'm really happy with the way the rehab went," he said. "It was tough for me because I've never done surgery before. It was different. Not being able to play and help the team win was obviously frustrating, but I'm just really happy with the way my knee feels. It's 100% and back to normal which is the most important thing. I'm just trying to get my game back to where it can be."

Nylander had COVID coming out of Chicago's training camp this season and was limited to two preseason games as a result. He ranked No. 2 in goals (eight) and No. 3 in points (12) through 23 games with a .500 Rockford team, but didn't get a shot with Chicago in the NHL this season.

"I was hoping maybe I get some more games and show that I could play, but it is what it is," he said. "I'm just looking forward, looking at the here and now, focusing on what I can do to get better every day."

As Nylander settles in to the Penguins organization, he has some familiar faces surrounding him. Both Wilkes-Barre's captain Fedun and assistant coach Kevin Porter were teammates of his when he was in Rochester, the Sabres' AHL affiliate.

"I actually thought it was going to be weird, but it's actually not that weird," he said with a laugh of Porter being a coach of his now in Wilkes-Barre. "I have two older guys here that I played with before; that makes it easier for me to come into the team."

Nylander was also teammates with Evan Rodrigues for all three of his seasons in the Sabres' organization, from 2016-19. The two were linemates in Rochester, and then again in Buffalo toward the end of the 2018-19 season, and had success in their brief time together.

"He's having an unbelievable year right now," Nylander said of Rodrigues. "That's awesome to see. In Rochester, he was really good. He was a couple years older than me and was trying to help me get better as well. He's really developed his game, he's unbelievable this year. It's awesome and great to see. He can just shoot the puck and he can make plays. He's a great player."

After seeing the way Rodrigues' career reached a new level since being traded to the Penguins, Nylander is hoping to follow in the same path.

"The Penguins have obviously done a great job with him and he's just getting better and better every year," Nylander said. "That's what I want to do, is get better every year and get to the top of my game, get my game to the next level, which I think Pittsburgh has done a lot with players. That's something I'm here to work hard for. Get my game to where it can be, so I can become a productive player every single game and be a game-changer out there."

Nylander sees the Penguins' organization as the place to make that happen.

"I'm very excited to join the Pittsburgh Penguins, and I'm ready to go here and really get my game to the next level. This is the right place for me to be."