William Nylander's disturbing history of injuring his own teammates.

Toronto Maple Leafs star forward William Nylander drew the ire of his own fans over the weekend when he injured Maple Leafs starting netminder Anthony Stolarz by striking him in the throat with a shot up high. It was a reckless play and entirely unnecessary, which of course explains why fans were so frustrated with Nylander at the time, especially given how much the team has struggled on the ice this season.

This however wasn't some isolated incident and in fact has brought several similar incidents from Nylander's past back to light, painting the star forward in an even uglier light.

You see Nylander actually has a history of injuring goaltenders with these types of shots, although those goaltenders unfortunately are always the ones playing for his team.

The first incident of this nature took place in January of 2019 when Nylander injured Maple Leafs backup goaltender Garret Sparks, once again striking his own goaltender up high with a shot ahead of an NHL game. In this incident Sparks was left stunned and would have to enter the NHL's concussion protocol as a result, with the Maple Leafs going on to lose the game he should have played in by a score of 4-3.

Unfortunately Nylander wouldn't learn his lesson following the incident with Sparks, with a similar incident happening again in January of 2023. This time it was veteran goaltender Matt Murray who was in between the pipes and again it was Nylander catching him up high with a shot during warmups in an incident that looks identical to the one we saw with Stolarz. Although the shot itself did not cause a fresh injury, it was enough to aggravate an existing injury Murray was already dealing with, forcing him out of the game in the process.

While I am by no means suggesting that Nylander is going out there to intentionally injure his own goaltenders, it does show a pattern of recklessness and a disturbing trend that the Maple Leafs should certainly look to address before they lose any more goaltenders to injury in this fashion.