By all reports, it appears that the contract talks between the Toronto Maple Leafs and William Nylander are going hot and heavy. If what we are hearing is correct from TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger who joined OverDrive to discuss Nylander’s ongoing contract discussions, the numbers that started lower in the summer have now moved higher to somewhere in the neighbourhood of $11.5 million-plus on an eight-year deal. If so, that would be the richest contract in the history of the Maple Leafs.
As cited in Bleacher Report, Dreger believes an eight-year extension could go as high as $11.5 million per year. As he noted Wednesday (Jan. 3) on TSN 1050, “I don’t doubt for a second that it is top priority for the Maple Leafs to get this guy extended. It’s getting to the place where I think he can appreciate as a star player, he’s likely earned it.”
Auston Matthews will get more per season, but his $13.25 million average annual value (AAV) deal is just for five seasons for a total of $53 million. If Nylander signs for $11.25 million for eight seasons, the total price tag of the deal will be $90 million.
Is Nylander Worth $11 Million Plus Per Season?
The question then becomes, is Nylander an $11 million player? If we look solely at this season, he is right up there among the top scorers in the league with 19 goals and 51 points in 36 games. On this one season, we would conclude that he is worth the money. At this pace, he would finish the season with 43 goals and 116 points.
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As of the writing of this, Nylander sits two points behind Connor McDavid, David Pastrnak, and Artemi Panarin. McDavid makes $12.5 million per season, Panarin $11.65 million, and Pastrnak $11.25 million. There is no feasible argument that would suggest he is as good of a player as McDavid. McDavid is regarded as the best player on the planet, period. But an argument could be made that Nylander could be on the same plane as Panarin and Pastrnak.
However, that is if we are only taking this season into account; and, even then we aren’t talking about a whole season. We are talking about less than half a season. That might be a small enough number of games to be considered a hot streak.
Comparing Nylanders’ Numbers Against Pastrnak and Panarin
What if we compared Nylander’s production with Panarin’s and Pastrnak’s over the past 200 or so games? That would cover the games played to this point this season as well as the previous two full seasons.
| Player | Games Played | Goals | Assists | Points |
| Pastrnak | 191 | 124 | 119 | 243 |
| Panarin | 194 | 75 | 166 | 241 |
| Nylander | 199 | 93 | 125 | 218 |
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Using the above chart, we can see that Pastrnak is more of a goal scorer than either Panarin or Nylander. Panarin appears to be more of a playmaker than Pastrnak or Nylander. The overall points for Pastrnak and Panarin are about 10% higher than Nylander’s points. That would indicate that Nylander would be worth about $1 million less than Pastrnak or Panarin. Based on these numbers, Nylander’s new contract would be in the $10.5 million range.
Comparing Nylanders’ Numbers Against Matthews and Marner
What if we made the same comparison to Matthews and Mitch Marner with the Maple Leafs? We see this season that, while Nylander has 11 fewer goals than Matthews, he has 17 more assists and six more points. Nylander also has five more goals, seven more assists, and 12 more points than Marner.
Like McDavid, there is no way we are saying Nylander is on the same level as Matthews. However, there has always been an argument made about who is the better player between Marner and Nylander.
If we go back to the beginning of the 2021-22 season, we see the following:
| Player | Games Played | Goals | Assists | Points |
| Matthews | 182 | 130 | 106 | 236 |
| Marner | 188 | 79 | 156 | 235 |
| Nylander | 199 | 93 | 125 | 218 |
This chart shows us that Matthews has 37 more goals than Nylander, which is to be expected. He also has 18 more points in 17 fewer games played. If we were to compare the points for the two players at an 82-game pace, we would have Matthews with 106 points and Nylander with 89. That is a 16% difference. If we use that in relationship to Matthews’ new $13.25 million deal, Nylander’s comparative salary would be $11.13 million.
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Looking at Marner, we see that he also has 11 fewer games played than Nylander, scored 14 fewer goals, has 31 more assists, and 17 more points. Marner’s 82-game pace for production would be 34 goals, and 68 assists, for 102 points to Nylander’s 38 goals, 51 assists, and 89 points. That is a 13% difference.
We can’t compare the dollar value of Marner’s $10.9 million salary to anything Nylander might get today because Marner signed his deal in September 2019. We can compare the deals as a percentage of the salary cap though. The NHL’s salary cap was $81.5 million in the 2019-20 season. Marner’s salary was 13.4% of the salary cap. With the NHL cap going up to $87.5 million in the 2024-25 season, his comparable salary would be $11,750,000. If we use their 13% difference in production since the start of the 2021-22 season as a guide, that would bring Nylander’s value in at $10.2 million.
That number aligns with the $10.5 million we came up with in the comparison to Panarin and Pastrnak.
The Bottom Line for Nylander’s Contract Numbers
With the comparisons we did, Nylander comes out the best when compared to Matthews. His comparative salary to Matthews works out to $11.13 million. Nylander’s value compared to Panarin, Pastrnak, and Marner comes to between $10.2 million to $10.5 million.
Equally important (or maybe even more important) is how badly Nylander wants to remain a Maple Leafs player and how badly the Maple Leafs want to keep him. Both sides say they want to get it done, but that could be a matter of everyone just saying the right thing to the media. We have no way of knowing what is being said behind closed doors.
Let’s say the low end of Nylander’s value is the $10 million he was looking for when the negotiations started and before he had the career year he is having. Would the Maple Leafs be willing to let him walk for an extra million or about 1.2% of the salary cap? If they feel he is a key piece moving forward, then $11 or $11.25 million is not that outlandish or unreasonable a number – especially if it is for the eight-year term that Dreger noted.
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There is a caveat to this conversation though. What if the season Nylander is having is an outlier? What if he returns to being the 35-40 goal, point-a-game player he has been the past two seasons? That would put his overpayment in the $2 million-plus range. Add to that, if it is an eight-year deal, Nylander will be 35 years old by the last year of his deal.
On the flip side, NHL history has been filled with players who have blossomed later in their careers. Brad Marchand didn’t have a 100-point season until he was 30; and, he’s scored at a 100-point, 82-game pace in the four seasons following his 30th birthday.
If this season is not an outlier and Nylander (who is 27) remains a 100-plus point player for the next five or six seasons, he will be well worth $11 plus million per season. That is especially true if the salary cap continues to climb at the same 5% level it is increasing in 2024. In eight seasons the salary cap would be $123 million. At $11.25 million, Nylander’s cap hit would be just 9% of the NHL’s upper end of the salary cap by the end of the deal.
We don’t have a crystal ball and we can’t see the future. There is a gambling aspect to every deal a team and a player signs. This deal could go either way. We will have to see how it all plays out.
[Note: I want to thank long-time Maple Leafs fan Stan Smith for collaborating with me on this post. Stan’s Facebook profile can be found here.]