Toronto Maple Leafs: Initial Money Reports are Crazy

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a dynamic duo who are going to get paid big money.

In this article, we’re going to leave out the other member of the Toronto Maple Leafs ‘MNM” trio because there’s not much reason to speculate on dollar signs for him quite yet.

William Nylander’s already eligible for an extension and Auston Matthews will be come July 1, 2018, the same as Marner.

The difference is that Matthews is a franchise player and Marner is slightly below that, meaning there’s not much reason to hype his up this early.

He’ll likely fall into a similar category as Nylander in that his contract extension talk will heat up around this time a year from now.

Now that we have that disclaimer out of the way, let’s talk about the other two.

We’ve speculated many times before as to what amount they’ll each earn, but we may be getting a clearer picture now.

It’s not too pretty, so let’s start with the lesser of the two.

William Nylander

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The talk has been centered around the Leafs most likely not interrupting the season to resign Nylander because there’s no need for that type of distraction.

Unfortunately, waiting as long as they are will make the price go up, especially if Willie continues to play the way he’s playing alongside Matthews.

I had previously speculated that he’d earn around $7 million per year, but that was somewhere in the middle and my idea of the floor was about $6 million per year.

It turns out that the floor may very well be that $7 million mark and I’m not just blowing smoke.

The TSN insiders got together on Insider Trading and discussed all of this, hence the reason to bring official numbers into play.

Thanks to Mark Easson of My NHL Trade Rumors for jotting it all down, we can reference the text.

Alright, give those links a watch or read to get the full picture, but for now, let’s head to the big ticket item.

Auston Matthews

My previous speculation for Matthews next contract was at an AAV of $10.5 million for eight years, $2 million less than Connor McDavid’s massive deal.

I may have been going at it the wrong way, but can you blame me?

The following is according to Darren Dreger, linked above.

"Think there is a strong possability that Auston Matthews could get more than Connor McDavid on his next contract – may be in the $13 to $13.5 million per season range on an eight-year deal. Matthews agent will factor in the salary cap going up each season."

Okay, that makes sense, they go after a percentage of the team’s cap rather than just pinpointing a certain million mark and demanding it.

That would likely be in and around 15-17%, of course, that’s going off of what the cap could be in two years.

Still, that’s a lot of money.

If you think I’m going to be doing a new cap article based on these initial reports, you guessed wrong.

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I went to school for Strategic Communication, not math.