Your Monthly Do No Trade William Nylander Notice

The Toronto Maple Leafs can not trade William Nylander.

William Nylander is untouchable.

Trading Nylander is idiotic, insane, short-sighted, laughable and crazy. Not to mince words or anything, but I am not a fan of the idea. Not under any circumstances.

It doesn’t matter what your positional needs are, you don’t trade elite players who you have control over for the entirety of their twenties.  YOU DO NOT DO IT.

Here is a list of superstar forwards who have been recently traded: Taylor Hall (Hart Trophy) Artemi Panarin (Arguably better than Taylor Hall or John Tavares) and Tyler Seguin (just scored 40 goals).

Here is a list of teams that do not regret those trades:

Untouchable

William Nylander can not be turned into a defenseman.  You are not getting Zach Werenski  for him, and that should end the discussion.  Jared Spurgeon is 28, so that’s dumb.  Anything else is too risky.

William Nylander is every bit as good as Mitch Marner by every single way we have to measure a player’s performance.  Trading an elite player before he hits his peak is foolish.  Trading him when you have full leverage to create a contract that gives you his entire twenties is asinine. What possibly advantage could be gained from trading this player, unless you got a defenseman of the same age, potential and contract status?

Team balance is a fallacy. If Nylander is worth X wins per year, then even if you improve your blueline, the player who you get back has to be worth the same amount of wins or you lose the trade.  The Oilers would be a better team with Taylor Hall and a worse defense.  No question.

There seems to be this idea that having more than a couple good forwards makes one expendable. But this is wrong. It doesn’t matter what position the players are playing, the Wins Against Replacement they provide help the team the same amount.

Here is an example: Let’s say Matthews, Marner and Nylander are all worth 5 wins a piece.  That’s 15 wins.  Now lets say you trade Nylander for a defenseman worth 5 wins.   It’s still 15 wins. On paper your team is more balanced, but there’s no proof that this will lead to more wins.  What position the players play has no effect on anything – a better player helps your team more than a worse player, regardless of position.

If anything, being deep at a position is actually better.  In the above scenario, the Leafs can use one of those players lower in the lineup than normal and gain an advantage by playing other teams worse lines.  Swapping Nylander for a defenseman negates this, and odds are, that defenseman then has to come in and play top competition. So you can’t even trade Nylander for a defenseman of equal value – in order to win the trade you would need a better player at a scarcer position.

Nylander and Tavares

The thinking is that getting Tavares makes Nylander expendable.  But how? The same principle as above applies.  The Leafs can play better players against other teams worse lines.  They still  improve their team by adding more Wins Against Replacement, and the need for balance is still a product of fallacy-based thinking.   And if they need a blue liner?  The Leafs have a million assets that aren’t named Nylander.  There is no need to give up the advantage of being able to compliment your two superstar centres with two superstar wingers.

The Leafs need a couple right-handed defenseman.  Chris Tanev, Colin Miller, Jared Spurgeon, Dylan Demelo, Mark Pysyk – any or all might be available, and outside of maybe Spurgeon, none would command Nylander back in a trade.  And, as mentioned, that would be a bad trade.

Next: Complete Leafs Draft Recap and Pick Evaluations

The obvious move for the Leafs – even if they sign Tavares – is to re-sign Nylander and refuse to trade him for anything.