Toronto Maple Leafs forward William Nylander has been fined $5000, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for an inappropriate gesture he made to a camera on Sunday.
Oh Willy 😂
🎥: TSN | NHL pic.twitter.com/7w8bW1C5xg
— TheLeafsNation (@TLNdc) January 25, 2026
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During Sunday afternoon’s game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Colorado Avalanche, one of TSN’s cameras was pointed at the press box, where Nylander and a number of other injured players and healthy scratches were taking in the game. Nylander noticed the camera and flipped his middle finger at it. He later apologized via his Instagram story and offered a more public apology to a scrum of reporters at practice on Monday morning.
“Yeah, first off, I just wanna apologize for my actions,” Nylander said. “It’s a lot of frustration, so I’m sorry about that.”
The action caught the eyes of just about every fan across the league, with some finding it humourous and others taking offence to it, whether it be because of the middle finger itself or the optics behind it, considering the state of the game and the Leafs’ season. He admitted that he did it out of frustration due to the amount of time he’s spent on the injured reserve this season, having missed more games this season than any other game this year.
“Just not, you know, playing,” Nylander continued. “You know, I want to be out there with the guys, and, yeah, just frustrated.”
Head coach Craig Berube defended his star forward, chalking it up to a mistake and not something that needs to be dwelled on.
“He made a mistake, he owned up to it,” Berube told reporters on Monday. “Things happen, people make mistakes, players make mistakes, coaches make mistakes, it happens. He knows it’s wrong and he owned up to it.”
Nylander remains sidelined with a groin injury that has kept him out of action since January 15’s game against the Vegas Golden Knights.
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