ya, so this is wrong. First off, Nylander doesn't care what his cap hit is, he cares about how much money he gets, so what's his motivation for this? He loses money by holding out under your scenario, so that's a hard no.
The cap hit is the cap hit is the cap hit. It doesn't change from year to year. What you're seeing is that when an RFA holds out and signs after the season starts, the team is penalized with a cap hit of 30K per day that he does not signed (if he eventually signs, if he doesn't no penalty)
This is why you're seeing a bigger cap hit for year one in other deals.

So the Ducks saved 45,000 a year in cap by having Lindholm signing late. So even if the Leafs and Nylander have this grand scheme on Wiliie signing December 1, the Leafs would save what 100,000 a year cap hit, from year 2 to year 6 or so. 100,000 meaningless with a 83m cap hit next year.
I like conspiracy theories....it makes for good fantasy, but let's talk about something real.....like did the Americans every really land on the moon, or who shot JFK.

Nylander hold out a ruse? Read the description.
is the way it was supposed to read,with the "?" this is more of a discussion piece then what I really think.
What I really think is Nylander will be traded but that's a different discussion.
Internet GM's are pissy… lol

500k doesn't mean crap.

This team has real problems going forward. Signing JT was a bad move. Not necessarily for the talent level on the ice. But for the team in general. It doesn't help he popped off at the jaw with some crap about "stay true to who you are" while the team in general runs it's mouth with an attitude of players should take less to win. Which is what prompted responses from Matthews like "that's why we have agents"

You had a young core here in Matthews, Nylander, Marner who took a bottom feeder team and turned it into a contender. Then they decided to pay out big bucks to a player who had nothing to do with turning this team around while trying to low ball the young core who did. How you think that works in a locker room? You think this year is bad, wait till next. Matthews is gonna want his 13 million, and if they are cheap with him he'll be next. Him and Marner are both looking at what is going on with Nylander and Matthews words were basically we stick with our boy, he helped get us here.

There is more to building a solid team then just talent level on the ice. You have to keep a team together and actually caring. You got an owner making huge money on this team acting like it's ok to low ball the players that made them relevant again. They ain't having none of it. Nor should they.

This is why the Penguins didn't sign big name players when Crosby, Malkin, Letang, and MAF were coming out of their rookie deal. They instead tried to keep as much of that core together as they could instead of looking at the outside. Because once you start throwing that money around you better start expecting your players to have the hand out too. The pens paid them their worth and when they couldn't they traded Staal out. They just couldn't afford him.

Toronto had a solid young core all about the same age. I'm pretty sure that's about to be gone. One of those players is out. It maybe more with the Organizations attitude. Who wants to work for a boss who has an attitude of your lucky to have a job or you should take less money while I make more. Screw that, and screw them.