Toronto Maple Leafs: Matthews and Nylander Contract News
New Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving is trying to negotiate contract extensions for two of the team’s biggest stars.
Auston Matthews and William Nylander will be unrestricted free agents after the 2023-34 season. This off-season allows them and the Toronto Maple Leafs to try and negotiate new deals to keep them in Toronto.
Treliving sounds confident that he’ll get Matthews and Nylander to re-sign. He also stated that while negotiating new deals, he’s also keeping an eye on the trade market.
According to Elliotte Friedman from Sportsnet, everyone is confident that Matthews will re-sign, but the negotiations between Toronto and Nylander’s agent will be a wrestling match.
The Maple Leafs would like to get Nylander signed within the $8 millions, while Nylander’s agent is seeking more than $9 million. Treliving is not one to allow contract talks to last all summer. He will not stand by and watch Nylander and his agent drag negotiations into pre-season and regular season like Nylander did during his last contract negotiation. If Treliving doesn’t feel confident that Nylander will re-sign, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Toronto trade Nylander.
Toronto Maple Leafs Contract Talks
The NHL officially set the 2023-24 season salary cap to $83.5 million. The salary cap floor will be $61.7 million, which every team has to be over. As for player salaries, the maximum salary an NHL player can get is $16.7 million annually.
Many around the NHL don’t see Auston Matthews re-signing for top dollar. He’ll likely take less to allow Toronto the chance to build a better team around him. Some have speculated that Matthews will sign in the $13 million to $14 million range rather than forcing the Maple Leafs to pay him $16.7 million.
If Treliving has to pick one player over the other, I think most would be happy if Matthews stays and Nylander is the one who gets traded. The Maple Leafs can’t afford to pay both players at market value. If Nylander’s camp plays hardball with Treliving, Nylander might find himself on a new team.
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It will be interesting to see what Treliving does during his first summer as Toronto Maple Leafs GM. He will be busy, that’s for sure. It sounds like he’s also interested in trying to re-sign Luke Schenn and Ryan O’Reilly.