William Nylander is the headline in the Toronto Maple Leafs' boldest predictions for 2026-27, aired this week on Leafs Morning Take.
Nick Alberga and co-host Rosie went bold on Sunday, mixing player predictions with team-wide swings for a franchise desperate for a turnaround.
Alberga's call on Nylander stands out. He's betting the winger hits the 50-goal plateau for the first time over his NHL career.
Nylander put up 30 goals and 79 points in 65 games last season, so that call means a jump of 20 goals.
Fifty goals in this league isn't a round number, it's a fraternity, and Nylander would be knocking on a door only a handful of Leafs have ever opened.
Alberga also has Sergei Bobrovsky winning 30-plus games with 50-plus appearances, a big ask after the goaltender posted a .876 save percentage and 20 wins across 52 games last season.
Easton Cowan factors in too. Alberga is calling for 25-plus goals from the winger, more than double his 11-goal rookie total from a year ago.
Rosie's swings went somewhere else entirely. He's got the Leafs' No. 1 pick popping off as a rookie, and he isn't buying Auston Matthews ever gets back to his old peak.
Rosie says Matthews' 69-goal ceiling is gone for good
Matthews scored 27 goals and 53 points in 60 games last season, a step down from his career year, and Rosie thinks that's simply where the 28-year-old is now.
Is that fair, or just a hot take for the sake of a hot take? Either way, it's not a small thing to say about a franchise center still owed a long-term deal.
Rosie's hottest swing might be Max Domi. He's calling for Domi to be ready for training camp despite the winger being widely expected to open the season on LTIR.
That one feels like a stretch. Betting against a lengthy recovery timeline is a bold way to fill air time, but it's the kind of call that ages fast if the medical news doesn't cooperate.
Then came the team predictions, and both hosts leaned positive. Alberga has new head coach Jim Hiller as a Jack Adams Trophy finalist in his first season behind the Leafs' bench.
He also expects a top-three power play and a top-three finish in the Atlantic, numbers that would mark a real turnaround for a team that finished 28th overall a year ago at 32-36-14.
Rosie went further, calling for a playoff berth that isn't secured through the wild card. For a team that closed last season on a seven-game losing streak, that's a real leap of faith.
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The Leafs enter Hiller's first training camp with plenty of noise and not much certainty, and how much of this list holds up won't start getting answered until October.
Will William Nylander actually score 50 goals for the Maple Leafs in 2026-27?
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