The Toronto Maple Leafs have about two weeks to figure out the William Nylander situation.
The Toronto Maple Leafs can not afford to lose Nylander. He was the best played they’d drafted since Wendel Clark at least, (and probably he’s way better) before they got lucky and also landed Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.
Any credible hockey analyst can tell you that Marner and Nylander are pretty much at the exact same level of skill and effectiveness. There is no statistical (read: non biased) reason to think Marner is any better than Nylander.
Nylander is irreplaceable. He is going to be one of the best players in Toronto Maple Leafs history, he only missed the top ten in scoring last year because his totals were artificially suppressed with a lack of ice time, and power-play time, and he is a legitimate elite player.
He usually gets compared to David Pastrnak, but his best comparison is Leon Draisaitl. Both players are great, and Nylander is just as great.
The bottom line is that the Leafs can’t afford to lose Nylander. He is great, and the Matthews/Nylander combo can be one of the all-time great combos.
If the Leafs do have to move on, then the trades floated recently on TV are terrible (Parayko compares poorly to actual elite defenseman like Victor Hedman) and Brandon Montour is Jake Gardiner if Jake Gardiner was as bad defensively as his reputation suggestions and scored less points (Note: Gardiner is awesome, and the most underrated player in professional sports history).
No offense to Nick Kypreos, who I like, but his idea to trade Nylander for Ritchie and Montour was so bad it made me wonder what Dave Nonis would think.
As explained here, the Leafs cannot make a packaged deal and hope to win it. it is impossible. Therefore, here is a list of acceptable trades, should it come to it.
Note, I previously wrote about a Charlie MacAvoy trade, but since I already did that, I’ll leave him off today’s list. (Boston won’t trade him anyway).