Quoting: Leafsfan98
What you think is irrelevant in Nylander negotiations...It's what Nylander and Treliving thinks... And I'm willing to bet that Nylander's thinking: "This dude, who's not scored 40 unlike me, is making nearly 10... I can now raise my asking price."
I’m sure Nylander will make that argument, but I don’t think Aho is a good comparable for him because they’re different types of players and they play different positions. If Nylander was on Carolina, they wouldn’t pay him more than Aho. Incidentally, Aho would have scored 40 goals in 2019-20 if they hadn’t cancelled the last 12 games, and he’s had more 35 goal seasons (3) than Nylander (1).
I think a better comparable for Nylander is Timo Meier, who just signed for 8x$8.8M. They’re the same age (Nylander is 6 months older), they play the same position, and both are coming off their first 40-goal season. Both have had some ups and downs through their careers, but they’ve been better and more consistent over the last two seasons. They score goals at a similar rate, but Nylander puts up more assists. Meier is coming off an unimpressive playoff performance, his first since 2019, while Nylander’s playoff production has been fairly consistent over the last 4 years and similar to what he does in the regular season.
To me that says Nylander should be paid at least as much as Meier, but probably not a lot more. He has one year left on his current contract at $6M, so a 7x$9.2M extension starting next year would be equal to Meier’s 8x$8.8M that starts now (not considering present value). I’m thinking 7x$9.4M would be about right. If he wants $10M to stay in Toronto because taxes are high in Ontario, he could argue that and Toronto management will have to decide if they want to overpay their players to offset the taxes, but I don’t think he can argue he’s worth $10M based on his performance.