William Nylander is the final member of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Core Four to join the eight-figure salary club.
On Monday, the ninth-year NHL forward agreed to an eight-year contract extension worth $92 million US. He was eligible to become an unrestricted free agent on July 1.
It is the largest contract in Maple Leafs history by total value and includes a no-movement clause.
Top centre Auston Matthews signed a four-year extension with Toronto last August that carries an average annual value of $13.25 million US. Linemate Mitch Marner agreed to a six-year deal in 2019 with an AAV of $10.893 million, while fellow forward and Maple Leafs captain John Tavares earns $11 million on his seven-year pact signed in 2018.
The deal was long rumoured, so Nylander’s teammates had been having a little fun at his expense, saying “you’re welcome” after earning assists on his two goals against the Sharks in San Jose on Saturday. Alternate captain and defenceman Morgan Rielly announced Monday dinners would be on Nylander for the next little while.
“I didn’t do this by myself,” said Nylander after Monday’s practice. “Thanks to my teammates and coaching staff, management, everybody that believed in me and especially the City of Toronto too, all the Leafs fans for all the support.”
Tavares pointed out Nylander’s personality gave his teammates licence to tease him as the deal was finalized.
“A lot of us have been together here for a while so there’s a strong bond and trust amongst each other and getting to know each other’s personalities, the type of people that we are, so definitely a lot of fun to give it to him a little bit,” said Tavares. “Obviously, it’s a great day for him. A lot of hard work has gone into it to get to this point.”
Rielly is also is in the second year of an eight-year contract worth $7.5 million a season. Those five players account for more than 60 per cent of the Maple Leafs’ salary cap space.
All five have no-movement clauses in their deals.
Management investing in core
Toronto now has approximately $45.75 million locked up in Nylander, Matthews, Tavares and Marner next season.
“It’s huge to me, as a player, to feel that they are really investing in the core, betting on us,” Nylander said. “I think that we feel the same way.
“That’s ultimately why I wanted to stay for eight years. I wanted to give it a run, to try to win the Stanley Cup.”
At $11.5 million, Nylander sits below only the New York Rangers’ Artemi Panarin ($11.64 million) among the NHL’s highest-paid wingers.
“This is the longest I’ve ever spent in one place in my entire life,” said the six-foot Nylander, the Sweden who was born in Calgary while his father Michael Nylander played for the Flames. “It’s funny, the other day I was talking to a friend and said ‘then we go home,’ referring to Toronto.
“Without even thinking about it, it was home.”
Nylander, who had two goals and three points against the Sharks, is on track for career highs in goals (47) and points (120).
“Just building off what I did the year before and the year before that. I mean, getting older and more mature as a player,” said Nylander, who posted 80 points in the 2021-22 season and improved to 87 last campaign. “I think everything is just coming together and becoming the player that I’m capable of being.”
‘He just goes out and plays’
Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe has used the word “unflappable” to describe the 27-year-old winger.
“He doesn’t get too concerned with anything that’s going outside of what his responsibilities are on the ice,” said Keefe, who signed a two-year contract extension last summer, keeping him as the team’s head coach until at least 2025. “And that’s what I really like about him. He just goes out and plays. And he wants to continue to get better.
“He’s been working on his game, working to find his own consistency over the last number of years. He took a huge step last season and hasn’t looked back.”
Last summer, multiple reports had Nylander’s ask on a long-term extension in the range of $10 million per season but the Calgary-born athlete has further stepped up his game and tops the Leafs with 54 points in 37 games.
In 2017, Nylander decided he would not negotiate his second NHL contract with Toronto in-season and it resulted in the longest NHL contract dispute in the salary cap era. He eventually reached a six-year deal worth $45 million that included a 10-team no-trade list.
At training camp last September, Nylander told reporters he had informed his agent, Lewis Gross, he could continue to negotiate with the Leafs throughout the season.
First-year Toronto general manager Brad Treliving had plenty of space to accommodate a Nylander raise, given Tavares’s contract comes off the books at the end of next season.
GM Treliving: ‘We move on to the next piece’
“You’re going to have a [salary] cap that increases [next season] but we’re also not blind to the fact that there’s other areas of our team as we move forward that you have to have to improve and we’ll continue to do that,” Treliving said.
“I don’t have any bold statements or proclamations to make today other than we got a really good player signed. Now we move on to the next piece.”
Toronto has seven other players set to become UFAs in the off-season and four restricted free agents.
Some of the most pressing questions are what to do with veteran defencemen TJ Brodie and Mark Giordano, who are becoming UFAs on July 1. Promising forward Nick Robertson and reliable defenceman Timothy Liljegren will become RFAs at the same time
Goaltending is another issue entirely. Martin Jones, who was signed a one-year deal with the team in August, will start for the Maple Leafs on Tuesday when Toronto hosts San Jose. Dennis Hildeby will serve as his backup as Joseph Woll still recovers from a high ankle sprain.
Ilya Samsonov, Toronto’s presumptive starter in net at the beginning of the season, was placed on waivers on Jan. 1 after he allowed six goals on 21 shots in a 6-5 overtime loss to the lowly Columbus Blue Jackets on Dec. 29. He cleared waivers and is now doing solo workouts with the Toronto Marlies, the Maple Leafs’ American Hockey League affiliate.
“We’re going to huddle here later this afternoon, sort of map out the next piece of that,” said Treliving about Samsonov. “But it’s been really good, his on ice and off ice work has been good.