The Toronto Maple Leafs have a ton of young on their roster, but there are three players at the forefront of the youth movement.
Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander are all under the age of 22 and all three players were key contributors last year during the regular season and postseason.
During the offseason, Nylander turned heads at the IIHF World Championship as he helped lead Sweden to a gold medal.
Nicklas Backstrom played with Nylander during the tournament and was asked about the young forward ahead of the 2017-18 season. Here's what he had to say about him, as per expressen.se:
"He has all the puzzle pieces to be (Sweden's next superstar). It feels like he is a quite all round player who takes on himself, and it is important in today's ice hockey. He made a really nice World Cup tournament and he will only get better. It was his first real season this winter and he will grow into an even better player than he already is."
There are a ton of very young and talented Swedes in the NHL right now (Filip Forsberg, Alexander Wennberg, Victor Rask, John Klingberg, Jakob Silfverberg), but the fact that a player as incredible as Backstrom singled out Nylander as the next great Swedish star is high praise to say the least.
The praise is warranted, though, especially when you consider Nylander was named tournament MVP at the IIHF World Championship.
(H/T: /r/hockey)
