WILL HE SIGN OR NOT, ALREADY?
Nylander wants to remain in Toronto, but a hometown discount is unlikely
William Nylander didn’t watch the game, but he said he caught the highlights. And so he saw everything that was worth seeing.
He saw John Tavares’ first goal as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs and he saw Auston Matthews toe-drag the puck around a defender’s stick and then roof it past Montreal’s Carey Price. And of course he saw the end of the 3-on-3 overtime period, when Patrick Marleau found Matthews alone at the side of the net for the game-winner.
“Great goals,” he told Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet Thursday. “I want to play, but now it’s the way it is. But I want to stay in Toronto.”
There’s no way of knowing how many assists Nylander would have picked up in the 3-2 overtime win against the Canadiens Wednesday or how many more goals the Leafs would have scored had the talented 22-year-old been in the lineup for the season opener. But what is clear is that the team didn’t seem to miss him that much.
Well, for now at least.
The Leafs can still score goals without Nylander and they can still find ways to win, even if it didn’t look all that pretty against a very weak Canadiens team, so the leverage remains with general manager Kyle Dubas and president Brendan Shanahan, who before the season opener insinuated Nylander was selfish for not taking less money to be part of something special.
After all, that’s apparently what he and the other Detroit Red Wings did during a dynastic run that yielded three Stanley Cups over a six-year span.
“At the end of the day, we all found a way to fit with each other so that we could keep adding to the group,” Shanahan told reporters. “And that’s obviously what we are asking some of our young leaders to do.”
It was a remark aimed at not only Nylander, but also Matthews and Mitch Marner, who could become restricted free agents on July 1, 2019. Though Shanahan didn’t mention those players by name, the message was clear: take less money for the greater good.
If not, well, it’s going to become harder to keep this group together, much less win a championship.
It’s a nice thought. And yet the example Shanahan used in making this point doesn’t really apply. For one, there was no salary cap when he played. And while the Red Wings won a Stanley Cup in 2001-02 with a Hall of Fame roster that included Shanahan, Nicklas Lidstrom, Sergei Fedorov, Luc Robitaille, Steve Yzerman, Brett Hull, Igor Larionov and Dominik Hasek, not one of them was under the age of 30.
That year, Fedorov played for just US$2 million. But he was also coming off a point in his career where Detroit had paid him $28 million in 1997-98 after Carolina had signed him to a ridiculous offer sheet. Hull also took a $3.5-million pay cut, but he was 37 years old and approaching the final three years of his career.
And then there’s Shanahan. If he left money on the table, he didn’t leave much of it. The $6 million he earned in 2001-02 was the second most he had made in his career up to that point. At the time, only Yzerman ($8 million), Hasek ($8 million) and Lidstrom ($7.25 million) were earning more money.
“There is a measure of truth to the fact that the boys agreed they would do whatever they could to stay together,” said agent Rick Curran, who represented Shanahan during his playing career. “But (general manager) Ken Holland never asked him to take less money to stay. A general look at the records suggests he didn’t leave any money on the table. No chance.”
Shanahan did sign a one-year contract worth just $2.28 million in 2005 to remain in Detroit. But by then he was 36 years old and he had made his money, had already won three Stanley Cups and was approaching the finish line on his playing career.
That’s not the same situation that Nylander finds himself in.
He is starting his career, not finishing it. He has not yet made gobs of money or won championship after championship. The only thing he knows about the future is that these next seven or eight seasons will be his prime earning years.
Players start producing less — and typically earning less — after the age of 30.
Perhaps that is why contract impasses such as this one are becoming more and more common. Two years ago, Anaheim’s Rickard Rakell missed one game and Hampus Lindholm sat out eight games, while it was nearly a month before Winnipeg ’s Jacob Trouba finally agreed to terms on a new contract.
“That limited window is key,” agent Kurt Overhardt, who represented Trouba, told Postmedia News in 2016. “Before the 2005 lockout, players didn’t hit free agency and didn’t hit the big money until they were 29-30 years (old). Now we’re seeing 21-, 22-year-olds signing these long-term deals. That’s a dramatic change.”
Nylander and his agent Lewis Gross both know this. They know that if Nylander takes less, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Matthews or Marner will also take less. Or that if he saves the Leafs money, the Leafs won’t just turn around and overpay for a freeagent defenceman next summer.
“The thing that bothers me with this whole idea of giving up money for the sake of keeping a team together,” said Curran, “is that all you’re doing is helping a GM make up for his past mistakes. That’s not the player’s responsibility.”
And so the waiting game continues. Nylander cannot win this battle. He needs the Leafs more than they need him. It cost him roughly $30,000 in potential lost wages to watch Wednesday’s game at home. A day later, while the rest of the team had the day off, he was skating one-on-one with a trainer in Sweden. He was wearing a Leafs practice jersey.
No question, Nylander wants to remain with the team and wants to be part of something special. But at the same time, he wants to get paid for it. Criticize him all you want, but a year from now Matthews and Marner will be asking for the same.
“In the end I have to take care of myself and do what I and my agent thinks is right. Especially if it’s about several years to come,” Nylander told Aftonbladet. “I need to think long term. It’s my own future it’s about.”
The thing that bothers me with this whole idea of giving up money ... is that all you’re doing is helping a GM make up for his past mistakes. RICK CURRAN, player agent