Toronto Maple Leafs: Give Nylander A Long Term Deal

With William Nylander’s Entry Level Contract Expiring, The time has come for the Toronto Maple Leafs to pay up.

Over the next couple months, who ever takes over the Toronto Maple Leafs GM role will have to decide whether to give William Nylander a lucrative long term deal, or a short term bridge contract.

For a while, it looked like bridge term deals were the road that NHL preferred to go down rather than backing up the Brinks truck right away for their players. The logic was simple. Make their young star players have to continue to earn it before cashing in. Teams want to have the biggest sample size possible of a player to limit the amount of financial risk their owners are taking.

Unfortunately, this made no sense from an ownership perspective.  Players tend to peak around age 23-24 so all a bridge deal does is make it more expensive to sign a player long term, and to make it so that you’re paying for what he’s done rather than what he will do.  From a salary cap management perspective, it’s obviously much better to bet on your own player in order to keep the cost down.

Notable Recent Bridge Deals

Coming out of the lockout in the 2012-13 season, Pk Subban needed a new contract. Subban and his Agent decided to hold out in the hopes of receiving a better offer. Subban would ultimately lose his leverage against the team with the Habs getting out to a 3-1 start to their season and their defence playing well. Subban reluctantly signed a 2 year deal worth a total of 5.75 million. This was such a team friendly deal that people actually believed Marc Bergevin was a good GM.

Pk would get the last laugh after winning the Norris trophy that season and posting 53 points the following season. It was time for the Habs to pay up. Inking Subban to a 8 year deal with a AAV of 9,000,000 per season. The Habs saved money in the short term, but it cost them big time in the long run. The Habs decided to trade the Subban contract for Shea Weber, who is well past his prime and has a cap hit of 7,857,143 until 2025.

Steve Yzerman has proven to be one of the best  general managers in the league since taking over in Tampa Bay. The contract he got Nikita Kucherov to sign puts an exclamation point on that. Following the 2015-16 season the Lighting had a decision to make after Kucherov put up 66 points and looking like a player on the cusp of stardom.

The end result has become the best bargain in the NHL. With a cap hit of 4,766,6667 over 3 years , Kucherov has put up 85 points and 100 points since signing. A big reason the Lightning have the depth that they do is because of this contract. Kucherov is a top 5 player in the NHL, and after next season is going to be paid like it. If Tampa can win a cup this year or next, the impact Kucherov’s next contract will have on this roster will be easier to swallow.  However, if they don’t win, they’re going to have to rip their team apart to sign Kucherov, who’s more than likely already peaked.

More from Editor In Leaf

• Toronto Maple Leafs: Nick Robertson Healthy and Ready
• Ryan Reaves Will Have Zero Impact on Toronto Maple Leafs
• Toronto Maple Leafs: Playing Max Domi In Top-Six a HUGE Mistake
• Top 10 Scandals in the History of the Toronto Maple Leafs
• Toronto Maple Leafs: Results from the Traverse City Prospects Tournament

With the direction the league is trending, bridge deals need to be a thing of the past. Locking up a young player long term has to be the answer. Yes teams will have to pay a high price faster than when they previously had to, but it is the best way to handle business in todays landscape.

Which brings us to William Nylander.

Nylander

The Toronto Maple leafs selected Nylander 8th overall in the 2014 NHL draft, where he has shown flashes of brilliance at times, while still struggling with consistency. He has found himself in Mike Babcock’s dog house more than once for his lack of compete, and has looked overwhelmed in his small sample size at center. In saying that, the Leafs need to lock Nylander up long term.

Signing a player who just turned 22 years old, and has posted back to back 61 point seasons to a bridge deal is a massive gamble the Leafs don’t need to take. Nylander is still only scratching the surface of the player he could be, and the priority of leafs management should be locking him in to a fixed rate over a long period of time. With the salary cap where it is, and the players the Leafs need to sign, locking up Nylander to a reasonable price long term isn’t just the right way to go, it is the only one that makes sense.

This is going to be a deal where the Leafs are paying Nylander for what he is going to do, rather than what he has done.  A good comparable contract for Nylander is the one the Winnipeg Jets gave Nikolaj Ehlers. A 7 year deal with a AAV of 6,000,000 is a deal that would be a win for both sides. Ehlers and Nylanders have put up virtually the same numbers the past two seasons, putting them in line to make the same salary, while not making more than David Pastrnak and his 6,666,666 AAV.

Next: Auston Matthews Getting the Bad Media Treatment

This shouldn’t be a contract that drags deep into the offseason. The Leafs have a trio of young stars to lock up with Nylander being the first domino to fall. There is no scenario where a bridge deal makes sense. Nylander will be mad at management about it and could lead to a broken relationship that can’t be mended, while also potentially out playing the deal and forcing the Leafs to dish out more money in a couple seasons when they will be in a tight cap situation. Sure there is a risk in giving out long term deals, but this is a risk the Leafs simply have to take.