I don't think 11.5M is gonna be that bad after a year or two once it is a significantly less percentage of the cap from what it will be this off season. It is rich right now, but after a few seasons it will probably be a good deal as long as the cap keeps rising

I feel its gonna be a NTC heavily front loaded deal like we saw with Marner and JT. Basically by year 5 hes barely making anything

But yea I dont see Toronto rebuilding

As once JT comes off the books I got a feeling something interesting gonna happen

Cap goes to 92.1m and yes Marner needs extending but he will probs be 12-12.5m

There gonna have space to spend, even now its just gonna be on what they use it for is the question. Or heck do they move on from Mitch. To me thats not a great idea considering he is there best 2-way setup guy and PKer

But hey lets see

Here's the thing about Willy besides this year that guys been streaky and I mean streaky. If that Willy comes back next year and beyond Leafs nation gonna turn on him faster than marner.

Hopefully this is not a one off season but idk I just get the feeling were gonna see him go back to around 80 point guy

JD Bunkies said it best after the SJS game and hes not wrong. In the end its hard to look at things the same when u see that price tag potentially attached lul


Anyways its a wait and see but for his sake this cant be a one offseason I will say that

Oh yeah no I agree, I'm just saying all the negativity surrounding the cap situation isn't as bad when you look at the long term

When looking at the third line 3 interesting names could be nice additions

1. Adam Henrique (can make a deal to add Lybushkin to)

2. Reilly Smith (If Pitts willing to eat half we got something cooking)

3. Thomas Tatar (If SEA ret half we get the meme and a slight upgrade 2-way guy)

The funniest thing I saw was someone going Marner is gonna make more than Matthews.

Guess people dont understand his deals the benchmark. If you want more than him your gonna have to outperform him

Marners been good but he would need a McDavid season to get more than Matthews (50 goals and 150 points)

Marner I see in 11.93-12.5m range

Yup, this is exactly what I suspected. Everyone but Willy is responsible for Willy's success. You don't deserve him

In 3 years lots of guys will be making more than Willy.

Marner is going to have to be a lot better than he's been this season and perform in the playoffs to even get what Willy's going to get. I am not sure if most leaf fans have noticed but Willy has been better than Marner for most of the past 2 seasons.

Nylander is fine... He's not a 6.9 million dollar player but he isn't an 11.5 million dollar player either...

Well on this site we can be sure of one thing. Every non leaf fan will be shouting as loud as they can that a leaf star HAS to get huge money.....right up until they get paid and then they are overrated and overpaid. It's already happening with Nylander. Everyone on here said he had to get 11+, and now that that seems to be the case, he's overpaid already.

Dont remember seeing anyone saying 11m+ here is where he should be. People were going 9.75, 9.88m, 10m, 10.25m, 10.76m heck even to the extreme 11. But More than 11 or heck 11.5m no.

11+m as were hearing now was basically a joke nobody was being serious about that. "get ready to learn this buddy"

Whoever had him in the 11's was overvaluing as look at the reactions when Kypreos said a deal over 11m (To much for a player like this is the consensus or what choice do we have its not great but better than to lose for nothing)

In general Willy better pray this aint a one off performance or Leafs nation gonna turn on him faster than Marner when he signed that 10.9m deal. Cause if he goes back to inconsistent Willy or 0 try Willy yea its gonna get ugly fast

Well unless they win the cup this year then its who cares lul

Do you watch hockey? Are you sure you are watching this season? Had Treliving just got the job done before the season even at 10, would anyone be upset? Because this season he absolutely looks like an 11 million dollar player.

Honestly, I don't care that much. Nylander right now is forcing his name to be listed with the very best of the league. He absolutely has been the best player on the ice many nights this season and that's with Matthews have a monster year as well. Has no one else watched him on his on games and thought, "man, if played like this all the time or just the majority of the time, how good could he be?" I certainly have, he does stuff very few people can do and he's always been like that. Few players have his talent level. Up until this season his consistency is what kept him lower in the league rankings. Some guys would be rated higher but have much less skill than Nylander but were more consistent effort wise and that is why they were considered better. This season we are seeing what Nylander looks like when he almost never shuts it off.

I know many think he's just having a contract year bump but does anyone accuse Matthews of that? Or MacKinnom, or McDavid or Tkachuk or Barkov or Pastrnak? None of them. Petterson? Nope, so why are we saying that about Willy? He's going to be happy when he gets his contract but nothing really effects him. He's going to just keep doing his thing like he always does and always has done. This is Willy now, and the awesome thing is, I think he can still improve his defensive game quite a bit on top of what he's doing offensively. He can still be better. Just get him signed. You can't trade him, you'll lose so bad.

Of course we can't go in time machine, but if Willy had resigned last summer, what kinda of season would he had this season? Detractors would say he would have been lazy and not as productive, of course he could would have been just as good as he is now.

In general its a risk no matter what happens

The only way people would be fine is if he signed a deal not in double digits no matter if it would be good or bad season like Tkachuck or Meier (8.8-9.5m)

Anyways that was never gonna happen so best not to dwell

I hope he does a McDavid and on the final day drops 1m from that 11.5m to make it a bit more feasable but I feel were in for 11.5m x 8 years and afterword's well lets watch Marner shall we lul

No other team is going eight years so you think would get a little lower AAV if the Leafs sign him to eight years. If the Leafs HAVE to pay Nylander the absolute top price that he might get elsewhere, maybe he isn't the guy the Leafs want. Same with Marner. But gotta say, Willy looks so confident this year, and really good.

Yep but the question is, is this actually him or is this another case of contract year fever thats the question

Cause if he goes back to inconsistent Willy or does not have a similar season to this year god help him as Leafs nation will turn on him faster than Marner lul

I think he'd be the same. I am fully confident this is the type of player he is and can still be better. How he talks about it is important and understanding him as well. He's so relaxed and can shut it all out. He had consistency issues that he's improved year over year, he's matured and will continue to do so as well. I am not surprised in this and I think he can still get better and wants to. He's proud, he wants to cement himself into the very best in the league. He can definitely get better defensively still and become even better all around. 11.5 will not be a bad contract for him. But it's unfortunate it wasn't done before the season. I would have been scared to start the season without a contract because I really believed he had this in him and even more yet. Offering under 9 blew that chance way out of the water.

Just to add, some players get better after they sign a pricey long term deal. They can "relax" knowing they set for life, and probably with the same team/city the rest of their career.

I don't see it. He's a competitive guy and likes proving people wrong. He thinks he's this good and is going to keep showing it for as long as he can. He can still improve his defence still and that would make him even better than he is now.

Overcrediting Willy a bit here

Hes competitive when he wants to be same for every guy here

We have seen the effort lack. TBL vs. TOR first time not great effort by him

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE03ynwGs7s

In general Willy is playing for a contract. Its no secret hes going to play his best and maximize his earnings as contract fever is a thing.

And even still the terms floatlander and inconsistent Willy didnt just come out of no where. Through his career hes had games where hes been great and others where its 0 effort. Take games vs. non playoff teams big 4 barely show up lul. Hes not done so yet (for obvious reasons) but once he gets his money then were gonna see

Would not surprise me if the play drops as thats usually what happens to most these guys. They get their money than drop back to their average. r

Dont see his game better than this as this probs be the ceiling or that combined with contract fever. Either way he better pray next year he does the same and this aint a fluke as they gonna turn on him like they did Marner and it wont be pretty

Sums the whole Willy thing best

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/OqLSxCWcB0I

I really hope its 10.5m pls pull a McDavid lul

This is self justification again. He's gotten more consistent every season. He has been our best playoff performer often as well. He's evolved into this. The past is the past.

I've been busy with real life the last few weeks so when I actually found the time to read some of what has been said in this thread, only thing I can think of is when Matthewsfan and I were in the minority on Keefe not being the coach to elevate this team to a finals appearance after the Montreal series. I guess people are finally starting to see more flaws in Keefe.

As for the Nylander extension, the player aside, it's incredible that this management has not been able to get the 3 forwards (Matthews, Marner and Nylander) to sign a team friendly deal.

In the cap ERA it seems very important to get someone from the core group to sign a deal that really emboldens the team to really fill out the roster.

I don't know how many of you are tired of years of being top heavy as far as this roster goes but.... 11.5? Yeah don't see that changing too much.

The roster needs balance but I'm not sure you get balance with Nylander at 11.5 and with Marner next...what's his number going to really be? 12.8? Yeesh!