Toronto Maple Leafs: Time to Lock-Up Nylander is Now

The Toronto Maple Leafs Need to Re-Sign William Nylander Immediately.

Why they have even waited this long is a mystery to me.  Every day the Toronto Maple Leafs delay, the more expensive he gets.

In the NHL, with the salary cap, you have to bet on your own players.  If you guess correctly and offer term in favor of a smaller cap-hit, it can really pay off.  An example of this is the recent contract to Zack Hyman – if he takes just even just  a small step forward and improves over his rookie season, he’ll be great value.  If somehow he ends up better than anyone would have thought, it will be a homerun.

The same kind of deal is not really possible with William Nylander.  Term is incentive for any player because it protects against a career threatening injury, but you can also buy insurance and the risk vs reward for a player like Nylander probably means term isn’t as important to him as a player like Hyman.  Obviously Nylander knows that as long as he’s healthy, he will have an NHL career and make a ton of money.  Zach Hyman has no such talent to make that kind of guarantee, so it’s easy to see how term would be more important to him.

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Whatever the Leafs offer Nylander, he has to weigh it against the fact that he could sign a series of short contracts and get massive raises with each one as he turns into one of the NHL’s best players.  The gist is that if the Leafs want to get Nylander signed for the maximum eight years (which they should) they are going to have to pay him like he’s already reached his potential.

Toronto Maple Leafs Should Take the Risk

This carries a ton of risk for the team because the risk that he doesn’t hit, combined with the flexibility of not being married to a player based off one (very good) rookie season.  I assume this is the reason why most players end up on a shorter contract between their huge payday and their rookie deal.

But the Leafs should take the risk.  If they don’t, they might end up having to pay Nylander something ridiculous.   Or worse, they give him something fair, only to have him price himself out of being re-signed three or four years from now.

People are talking about eight million dollars for Leon Draisaitl.  There is at least an even chance Nylander ends up being the superior player.  If Draisaitl were to sign for $8 this summer, and Nylander, who is a year behind in his development, were to outplay him next season, the Leafs will pay huge for it.

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Instead, the Toronto Maple Leafs should try to sign William Nylander immediately.  The best case scenario would be to pay him the least amount he’ll take to sign an eight year deal.  If you could get him in under seven would be amazing.  But with McDavid making almost $13 million, the time to sign William Nylander is now.

Before he gets even better.