Welcome back my Cap-friendlies! Well, the worst kept secret in hockey finally came to fruition earlier this week as William Nylander has signed an extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs. We have to dive into this contract, its ins and outs, and what it means for Toronto moving forward.

When I got the notification on my iPhone telling me that William Nylander was close to signing an eight-year, $11.5 million dollar extension with Toronto my immediate reaction was – "It's fine…"

And with that thank you so much for reading this week's Capped!

No but all kidding aside, this extension was inevitable from the moment that rumors leaked that the Leafs were working on an extension as far back (and possibly even further) as last summer. There are no rumors in hockey, just head starts. In a previous Capped article, I wrote that I thought Nylander would land somewhere around the $11M dollar mark, which I don't think I'm alone on. The term though did surprise me a little bit at first but then when I compared this to some of the other signings that Brad Treliving has made, it did start to make some sense as he has been one to sign players to eight-year deals (for better or worse). Besides texting some friends once the deal was in place was of course text the hockey chat but the next thing I did was my "fool-proof 100% never ever wrong except it might be sometimes", equation for contracts that I know I've written about here before. It might still need some time in the shop because players are now entering the league earlier than before but essentially if you take the players age, divide that by two, then add the contract, if you get a number that is 21 or below it's a great deal. Further you go away from 21 is how the contract will eventually age, and important to note here that option years from the club do not count in this situation. So, break out the calculators and let’s figure this out! Nylander is 27 years old…divide that by two…add the eight into mix…21.5. Okay so going off the metric here, not bad! There's also a lot of other aspects that I think we have to cover here.

So, let's talk about the number here, and I'm just looking at the $11.5M AAV, and that is because the structure of the deal has a fluctuating signing bonus to base salary combination that adds up to his cap hit each and every season until 2031-32. I know the reaction from a lot of Leaf fans, or just hockey fans in general, was somewhat shocked and I get that. It's like when you go to buy a car or say, I don't know, house hunt in the west Chicago suburbs/anywhere these days…it's a lot…a LOT of money. But to be frank here, keeping the 'Core Four' together was always the plan even before this iteration of the Leafs front office got sworn in (I imagine there's a coronation-type event that takes place at the MLSE headquarters). Someday when I write my hockey book that will hit shelves somewhere between now and probably when Nylander's contract is set to expire, one of my rules is that when you're in a championship window you cannot cheap out. Say what you will about roster construction or earlier playoff exists, that's where this Maple Leafs team is right now, will be again next season, the season following that, etc.

Was the extension signed at the right time? Here I think yes and that's because I can absolutely see a world where if the extension never takes place, somebody offers Nylander an even larger contract in free agency, and that's considering the cap-strapped situation that most teams find themselves in right now. Some club out there would have talked themselves into throwing a $12-$13M contract Nylander's way. Plus say that did happen and he either walks for more money or it boosts the price up for Toronto if they wanted to match dollar-for-dollar or exceed whatever club that they were to be in a bidding war with. This, I think, was a situation that the Leafs knew very well they could find themselves in and wanted to avoid.

So now let's chat about where this takes Toronto…meaning what the future might look like for contracts now that we know where Nylander's AAV puts them. I've heard the argument that the cap is going up, so they'll be just fine, and everyone out there that has mentioned that I want to say that yes, the salary cap is going up…sort of. For this Toronto team now any increase in the salary cap will be used for the Nylander extension and Auston Matthews extension. I'm not going to speculate what this means for Mitch Marner and John Tavares as they would be the logical next steps here because gaging where each of them could sign at is tricky right now. What I can speculate though is what Toronto could look like in the future if Marner signs a shorter-term contract or contract extension, same goes for Tavares. Nylander is the only one right now that has more term on his deal than the other three so could this Leafs club look extremely different come that time? Well, yes, most clubs inevitably will, but I would not be surprised if when the dust settles if Nylander is the last one left of the four come 2032. By that time either the cap is over $100-million so who cares, or raising sea levels force the Leafs play their home games up in Sudbury, so again who cares.

I do think though if there's one aspect to this extension that does worry me it's not Nylander in a vacuum, it's all of the large contracts combined. Along with a large portion of the cap going to four players (not so much Morgan Rielly in this example), it's that the Leafs will have four players in the double-digits for contracts. Last season, the Vegas Golden Knights became the first team to win the Stanley Cup with one double-digit contract (Jack Eichel), so the cap gymnastics that will need to take place for Toronto are going to be tricky. In the NHL it's impossible until someone does it, and Vegas showed that last season it can be done with one large contract, it will only be a matter of time until a club figures a way to make it work with even more than that on their books. Looking up at high salary numbers on a white board can be daunting but it helps when you have the talented names that Toronto does, associated with them.

I'm going to touch on a couple aspects briefly as well and the first is the amount of people who seem…I'll go with "surprised" that there is a NMC attached to this deal. It's the NHL and it's 2024, I'd venture to say 8/10 contracts that are signed that are not an ELC, 35+, or even retained salary, have some sort of trade protection. The NHL trade deadline is close to having no big names move at the deadline because of that but that's a story for another article…that I'll probably write eventually. As far as Nylander's play and if this is warranted, yes, this extension makes sense as even going back to last season he has been at an exceptionally high level of play. I remember going back three seasons or so Nylander would get dragged for lack of defense, but I don't think even that's been the case as of recently. I also can't say he hasn't been healthy as he has shown that he has been extremely durable as the only seasons he's missed time were because of a contract holdout and COVID. I'll also say typically I worry about players when they come ready to sign with playoff experience or lack thereof, but if ten points in 11 games is the recent sample, I get with Nylander than that's good a fair gage of what type of impact he can have on a series. I think if you're a Leaf's fan it's a relief, one of your star players is in your life on your favorite club for the next eight seasons, and that is a great feeling to have. We have to touch on fantasy here, and for those like me who have Nylander in a dynasty league we have to be smiling. Those in cap leagues, this was bound to happen, and I wouldn't be surprised if trades start to take place in your league to navigate this upcoming extension.

*Salary Cap data from CapFriendly.com

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