The Toronto Maple Leafs better not sign William Nylander for more than $10M AAV.
If you compare Toronto Maple Leafs winger William Nylander to the rest of the league, there’s no reason to believe he’s worth more than $10M AAV, however that seems to be the magic number he’s looking for right now.
I’ll never get mad at a player or agent for trying to maximize their salary and neither should you. In the grand scheme of things, $9M per year versus $10M per year isn’t going to change your lifestyle, but it’s still a difference of $1M.
That’s not chump change we’re talking about and fans should understand just how important it is to get every cent you’re worth.
If you were in that position you’d feel the same way, so there shouldn’t be any judgement towards what Nylander’s camp is trying to do right now. We all know that he’s a talented winger and the Leafs are happy to have him, however if he’s only going to re-sign in Toronto if he gets $10M AAV, then Toronto needs to walk away from the situation.
The salary cap is bound to rise, but the fact that it’s stayed stagnant is worrisome for signing a player long-term right now. It only went up $1M next season when it probably should have gone up much more based on television rights and expansion, but Gary Bettman’s rational continues to boggle my mind.
William Nylander Is Not a $10M Player for the Toronto Maple Leafs
When you compare Nylander’s contract and play to the rest of the league, a few names come to mind. Mark, Stone, Brayden Point, Mikko Rantanen, Mathew Brazal and Timo Meier are five players who are in the same ball-park as Nylander.
All five of those players make less than $10M AAV and it’s deserved. Throughout the entire NHL, only 15 players will make $10M or more during the 2023-24 season and for the most part, all of them are justified. The only one that is arguably slightly overpaid is Jonathan Huberdeau, but he was coming off an 115 point season when he signed his contract, so he had lots of leverage.
As for the five players I just spoke about in Nylander’s wheelhouse, Nylander is much better than Matthew Barzal ($9.15M), but I’d say he’s just slightly better than Timo Meier ($8.8M), who recently signed a long-term extension to stay in New Jersey.
Meier had 40 goals last year, similar to Nylander, but has three previous 30-goal seasons, compared to Nylander’s two.
As for Brayden Point ($9.5M), Mikko Rantanen ($9.25M) and Mark Stone ($9.5M), all three of those players are Stanley Cup winners, with Rantanan and Point being 50-goal scorers.
Stone’s point total’s resemble Nylander’s a lot more, so they’re comparable in that respect, but Stone is an elite defensive player, a Cup winner, the captain of the Vegas Golden Knights and he almost won the Conn Smythe last year. No offense to Nylander, but he will never be a captain of an NHL franchise, so those leadership qualities make Stone worth the money, just as much as his play on the ice makes him deserve it.
Regardless of the contract that Nylander receives, unless it’s something similar to his current deal ($6.9M), I just don’t see a world where he remains a member of the Leafs. On the open-market, and based on inflation, I think the magic number for Nylander is $9.20M, which is just above Barzal and slightly below Rantanen.
If some reason the Leafs decide to re-sign Nylander for more than that, I think it will be a terrible decision, but either way, I think the Toronto Maple Leafs would be best off trading him now and letting another team sign him for too much money.