With each passing day, speculation grows as to what the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to do with William Nylander.
Nylander is currently in the midst of a contract holdout, but Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos reported Saturday during the Headlines segment of Hockey Night in Canada the team is not shopping the winger and that the player “has not requested a trade as of yet.”
Negotiations are ongoing but the two sides are reportedly not close. Kypreos said he was told there is a four-year contract offer on the table that is “well under $20 million in total” and that Nylander’s proposed salary cap hit would be closer to $4 million as opposed to north of $5 million annually.
Elliotte Friedman speculated that two relatively recent bridge contracts that could be comparable to what Nylander might get are the three-year, $14.3-million ($4.76 million AAV) deal Nikita Kucherov signed with the Lightning in 2016 and the two-year, $12-million deal ($6 million AAV) Blue Jackets star Artemi Panarin inked when he was still with the Blackhawks.
Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston added that some teams have explored the possibility of what an offer sheet for Nylander might cost them but that in this case it might be too complicated or expensive to pull off successfully.
Nylander must sign a contract before Dec. 1 otherwise he won’t be eligible to play in 2018-19.
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