TORONTO — Yes, they show Game 4’s infamous bench bickering.
No, William Nylander doesn’t say exactly what the amateur lip readers imagined he said.
And, no, we aren’t given a completely unfiltered capsule of the superstars’ argument and its immediate fallout.
But, yes, the opening episode of Faceoff: Inside the NHL — which spotlights the friendly rivalry between Nylander and longtime friend David Pastrnak — still supplies a juicy peek behind the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ curtain.
(The complete and excellent six-episode docuseries premieres Friday on Amazon Prime. If you don’t want teasers, stop reading now. Either way: The series is worth watching. I devoured it in two sittings.)
With the Leafs trailing Pastrnak’s Boston Bruins 2-1 in their first-round playoff series and Nylander prefacing his much-anticipated return to action by warning of the danger of going down 3-1 with another home loss, tension rises around what will certainly be Episode 1’s most-discussed scene.
After sitting out the series’ first three games with debilitating eye migraines — “Knowing how I was feeling, I wouldn’t have been of any help,” Nylander would concede — we find Toronto’s mic’d-up No. 88 fully engaged in the battle well before he rips Mitch Marner in the heat of action.
He demands a teammate to “give me the f—— puck.” He glares hard enough to pierce lasers through that tinted visor of his. And he commands a Leafs defenceman to be ready for the, uh, freakin’ one-timer off an O-zone draw.
Playoff Nylander just hits different.
And Box to Box — the producers tacking Faceoff to a sparkling sports doc résumé that already boasts Formula 1: Drive to Survive, Full Swing, and Break Point — does a fine job contrasting the easygoing, dog-walking, subway-riding, spontaneous-outdoor-shinny-playing version of Willy Styles with the dialed-in monster that scores the Leafs’ only three goals in their two most recent elimination games.
“When it means more, I shift a little bit,” Nylander explains. “I think I become a different person in those moments.”
We see that shift in his killer scowl before striding out for Game 7’s heartbreaking overtime period.
We see it in his edge-of-seat cheering for his teammates after welcoming Amazon Prime’s cameras into his condo to watch him watch an early-series game as a fan. (Nylander revealed at the episode’s Toronto premiere that the editors cut out the box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts he had on hand for the nervous viewing.)
Nowhere do we feel it more, though, than in Nylander’s bench command as a pivotal Game 4 slips away and Marner’s chucks his gloves in frustration.
Nylander, captured on mic: “F—–‘ shoot it. Stop f—–‘ cryin’, bro. This is the f—–‘ issue. You guys f—–‘ b—- about s—. Let’s f—–‘ go!”
(There is no mention of junior hockey, as some had guessed.)
What’s interesting about that moment is that Nylander’s voice is the only one heard. Because Faceoff narrows its focus to specific stars, often at the expense of team-based narratives, this is in keeping with the show’s spirit.
However, we get zero commentary from Marner, Auston Matthews, or then-coach Sheldon Keefe on the spat.
(Or anything else for that matter. While critical to the series’ story, Matthews’ concussion symptoms, goalie Joseph Woll’s surprise unavailability for Game 7, and Jeremy Swayman’s usurping of Linus Ullmark aren’t so much as given passing mention in the doc. The 45 minutes are all about Willy and Pasta.)
“When you’re on the bench and that kind of stuff happens, they catch that. But that’s what’s fun about the show and being able to see that aspect of the game,” Nylander told reporters. “I mean, without the cameras there, nobody would know what was going on.”
Marner has said he’s unlikely to watch the show. In his defence, he lived it.
Following Game 4, Marner said: “We’re not yelling at each other because we hate each other. We just want to all be on the same page to help each other out to try to get the best offensive chance…. Willy and I and Auston, we talked about it after. We’re just trying to make a play, and unfortunately enough it didn’t happen on that one.”
Nylander, too, chalks up his harsh bench words to playoff intensity among “best friends” who want to win.
And Matthews — who has chatted with Faceoff‘s undisputed king of unscripted intensity, Connor McDavid, about allowing unprecedented access for the filming — sees the benefits of peeling back a layer for the fans.
“It’ll be good for the sport. I mean, I love seeing that stuff. Even since I was a kid, I was always on YouTube. I was watching highlights, but I think the behind-the-scenes stuff was always something I really enjoyed watching as well,” Matthews says. “So, I think it’ll give fans a different perspective on kind of what goes on day-to-day in guys’ lives.”
For instance, we discover that Nylander’s migraines started in Toronto’s 5-2 loss in Florida on April 16 and were so debilitating, he could barely read. This helps explain why the winger went minus-five in Games 81 and 82 and why Keefe said at the time that Nylander was done with the regular season.
More open to exposure than ever in his episode, Nylander believes “it’s great” that active NHLers are hopping on the docuseries trend. He maintains he had no hesitation letting Box to Box roll in his home while injured and had zero say on the final cut.
“I think it’s interesting seeing the way other athletes live their life, regardless if it’s golf, tennis, the NFL,” Nylander says. “So, I think that’ll be pretty fun for people to see.”
Start binging, bro.