Here's An Important Update On The William Nylander Situation
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What’s the update?
Well there is no update.
Today is November 28. The Toronto Maple Leafs are playing in their 26th game tonight. Auston Matthews will be back in the lineup after missing the last 14 games with a shoulder injury. And there is still no sign of William Nylander. This is days after Marc Savard sent this tweet out.
Now Savvy is a legend and a beaut. I would never accuse him of spreading false information. I know he’s no Bob McKenzie or anything like that but I wouldn’t expect a guy like Savvy to tweet this out without thinking it was 100% truth. His source, however, could have been swinging for the fences on this on. Because December 1 is just 3 days away. We’re now under 100 hours away from William Nylander either signing in Toronto or sitting out the entire year. $6.9 is now the number being tossed around out there as opposed to the $8M that Nylander’s camp originally started at. Is William Nylander worth $6.9M right now? He still has to prove himself a little but James Mirtle from The Athletic wrote a really good article on Nylander’s comparables and it looks like that number is fair for both the team and the player. So I guess the only thing holding up a signing at this point is term?
Seems like we’re a little too close to this deadline to be fighting over how many years he’s signed for. At this point you already got him down to a much more team-friendly value number than he originally went into negotiations looking for. Sign him while you can right now and if he takes fewer years on his deal, then you let him walk the next time these negotiations come up. But when you have Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner on the final year of their ELC and the team still has a few million waiting around to make a deal at the trade deadline even after you pay William Nylander? You have to take a chance right now. This is the year for the Leafs to get it done. You need to win a Cup while your star players still aren’t making the money they’re worth. Sign Nylander for $6.9. Take a crack at some defensemen with expiring contracts at the trade deadline. Win the Cup and move on from there. Simple as that. Don’t be idiots about it.