William Nylander's sister Ella rallies Leafs nation ahead of potential elimination game against Panthers

The Toronto Maple Leafs played the Florida Panthers in a potential elimination game on Friday. Leaf forward William Nylander’s sister Ella Nylander shared a carousel of pictures from her gameday experience on her Instagram from their previous game at Toronto with a rallying message for Leafs nation.

One of the pictures showed her riding the TTC subway wearing a customized Maple Leafs varsity jacket with “Nylander” stitched across the back. Another click showed the Leafs flag being stretched across the ice at Scotiabank Arena during the pre-game ceremony.

“G🍩 LEAFS G🍩!!!” she wrote in the caption.

She also posted a snap of a Krispy Kreme doughnut box, followed by a close-up of chocolate-glazed doughnuts. The final slide showed the packed crowd inside the arena with fans dressed in blue and white waving their handkerchiefs.

The Leafs shut out the Panthers 2-0 on the night and forced the series to Game 7. Ella Nylander tuned in to the game and shared her excitement after the second goal.

“Let’s go!!!!” she wrote on her stories with a snap of the scoreboard.

Auston Matthews scored early in the third period on a setup from Mitch Marner while Max Pacioretty gave them a cushion with a goal late in the third. The Leafs will now play Game 7 in Toronto for a chance to advance into the Eastern Conference Finals.

Leafs not paying heed to outside noise

During the post-game interview, Leafs alternate captain Mitch Marner mentioned how proud he was of the team for not backing down after their Game 5 loss and coming out with a win in Game 6.

When asked about outside criticism and pressure for the Leafs, Marner said the team doesn’t let that bother them. He mentioned how much trust they have in each other and said that their patience and strong team play helped them get the win.

“I mean, like we’ve talked about all year, we don’t care. We just go out there and want to do our thing. What you love about this team is there’s a lot of trust in that locker room with one another,” Marner said.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, knew we weren’t going to get many looks. The thing we loved was staying patient with our game. Couple of big kills to start off, and we just stuck with it and got the result.”

Looking ahead, Marner mentioned that they were excited to play Game 7. He pointed out that it is the kind of high-stakes moment players live for, but also made it clear that the job isn’t done yet.

About the author

Anjum is an NHL reporter at Sportskeeda with over five years of professional experience in the spectator sports industry. Raised in Bahrain, Anjum grew up close to the Formula 1 and GP2 scene, but it was ice-sports that she truly had a chance to play at school.

Anjum prioritizes thorough research, fact-checking and verification of sources when reporting, and has worked for Oil on Whyte, Leafs Herald, the Nation of Blaugrana, Barca International Cules, FromTheBend, Last Word On Sports and NASA.

She got interested in ice hockey after watching the “MVP” trilogy as a second grader and has not gotten over the sport yet. Her favorite player is Alex Ovechkin, whose legendary one-timers live rent free in her heart. The iconic moment when Ovechkin reached 800 career goals with a hat trick in Chicago as the away crowd chanted “Ovi, Ovi” is probably her happiest memory from an ice-rink.

When not enjoying the game, Anjum can be found sailing, star-mapping or collaborating with fellow citizen scientists at NASA.

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Edited by Anjum Rajonno