TORONTO — The directive from William Nylander as negotiations got started with the Toronto Maple Leafs on an extension entering last summer was pretty simple: prioritize an eight-year contract that would allow him to extend his stay with the organization for the maximum time allowable under the NHL’s collective-bargaining agreement.
“This is home,” he said Monday after putting pen to paper on a contract that was nearly seven months in the making.
Now, Nylander didn’t do the team any favors while securing a $92 million, eight-year deal that is now the largest in total value handed out in Leafs history.
And why should he have?
As an elite talent with prime years still ahead of him who had the ability to walk out the door on July 1, he and his camp were in possession of all the leverage from the outset. They could take a hard stance in negotiations with a high degree of confidence that he’d be able to fetch something north of $11 million on the free-agent market this summer.
Plus, there was the fact that his last contract negotiation went anything but smoothly.
Nylander essentially sacrificed a third of the 2018-19 season due to a bitter round of talks with former general manager Kyle Dubas that ended with him signing a six-year deal carrying an average annual value a shade under $7 million — a contract that proved to be far more team-friendly than those signed by peers Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner in the 20 months that followed.
Giggling with teammates, honing his craft, repping a local Italian joint and shrugging off any pressure: if the Maple Leafs can get eight more years of the William Nylander who showed up to work on Monday everyone will be happy.
By the time last offseason arrived, Nylander could point to a resume that had seen him boost his goal, assist and point totals in two successive regular seasons while producing at a level commensurate with (or better than) his higher-paid teammates across the previous three or four playoff campaigns, particularly when measured by goals or points per hour in the most important games the Leafs played.
Still, when new general manager Brad Treliving and Nylander’s agent, Lewis Gross of Sports Professional Management Inc., met in Nashville to discuss their respective positions during the June draft, there was a sizable gap between how the sides saw the world when it came to Nylander’s next contract.
The Leafs were eyeing a deal in the 8s — something in the range of the eight-year, $8.5 million AAV contract Filip Forsberg signed with the Predators in 2022. Given the similar levels of production in Forsberg’s platform season and Nylander’s 2022-23 campaign, it was not an unreasonable comparison to draw at the time. But the Nylander camp pegged his value at being in the NHL’s upper-most tax bracket and much closer to the deal he ultimately ended up signing.
With the gap so wide and Treliving being thrown head-first into free agency after replacing Dubas, not to mention a negotiation with Matthews on an extension that wasn’t wrapped up until late August, the Nylander talks went quiet over the summer. That was the only period where the 27-year-old winger experienced some doubts about whether he’d get the chance to be a lifetime Leaf.
“You have no clue what’s going on,” Nylander said. “In the summer, I didn’t know what was happening with the new management, what their thoughts were.”
Any concerns were eased by the time he returned to Toronto for training camp.
That offered the opportunity for face-to-face conversations and the chance for both sides to reinforce a shared objective: finding a way for Nylander to stay with the team he’d been picked by at No. 8 in the 2014 draft while allowing the Leafs to hang on to a core member of their franchise well into his 30s.
On the opening day of training camp, Treliving told reporters it was a “priority” to get Nylander signed. By the time the calendar had flipped to January, it was an imperative for the organization.
Remember that there was a degree of risk from both sides by entering the season with no extension in place. For Nylander, there was the possibility of injury, underperformance or simply a cold run of shooting luck weakening his bargaining position.
For the Leafs … well, it’s basically exactly what we’ve seen play out over the past three months.
Nylander has taken his game into the stratosphere. By far the team’s most consistent performer with points in 33 of 37 games played this season entering a Tuesday matchup with San Jose, Nylander found himself on pace for 47 goals and 120 points when signing his new contract.
“I feel like that’s been my goal my entire life, to be a top player in the league. That’s how I feel I’m playing. That’s where I want to be at.”
How William Nylander mastered his contract year for the Maple Leafs: https://t.co/BnguxwvXp2
That helps explain why he found himself securing an $11.5 million AAV surpassed by only four NHL players under contract for next season: Matthews ($13.25 million), the Colorado Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon ($12.6 million), the Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid ($12.5 million) and the New York Rangers’ Artemi Panarin ($11.6 million).
Nylander may not have favorable overall comparables to any of those players — or even some below them, like Boston’s David Pastrnak at $11.25 million — but his case certainly wasn’t hurt by the confirmation from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at last month’s Board of Governors meeting that next year’s salary cap will take a significant jump for the first time since the pandemic, to $87.675 million.
That gave his agent the chance to hone in on the percentage of the 2024-25 salary cap he’d be taking up when making comparisons to other players. The 13.12 percent of cap Nylander’s deal ultimately landed at is actually behind where Panarin (14.29 percent), Pastrnak (13.64 percent) and even Marner (13.38 percent) were when they signed their current contracts.
Still, the Leafs had to stretch to the far reaches of their comfort zone before making Nylander one of the NHL’s highest-paid players. They ultimately determined there was no adequate way to repay his talent and production in a league where very few game-breakers make it to free agency, especially since the organization lacks the kind of assets needed to pull off a blockbuster trade.
Not only did they give Nylander a full no-movement clause and the big AAV, but they also agreed to limit his salary to just $1 million in Years 3, 4, 7 and 8 of the extension while jacking up the signing bonus payments — shielding him from the financial risk of a lockout when the current CBA expires in September 2026 and making the possibility of a late-stage buyout much less likely.
“Listen, it’s a big contract. It’s a lot of money,” said Treliving. “I don’t know if there was ever an ‘ah ha’ moment (in negotiations). You arm-wrestle. You go through it. But I don’t think there was ever a time where we felt we weren’t going to get to the finish line.”
They ended up making a massive commitment to get it over the line.
William Nylander has turned into a superstar. He got a big extension.
Before doing so, they’d at least had the chance to see Nylander play more than 600 games in a Leafs sweater and gained additional comfort after watching him follow a strong season in 2022-23 with an even bigger step in the first half of 2023-24.
As for Nylander, this ended exactly how he hoped it would. He tried to keep the daily flow of information to a minimum once the season started going and trusted his agent and Leafs management to work through the negotiations.
By the time he signed on the dotted line Monday morning, the realization dawned on him that it offered a path to spending his entire NHL career in Toronto.
“That was one of the things you’re thinking about going through the process. Eight years,” said Nylander. “I want to achieve something special and at that point, that would be the ultimate dream.”
CALGARY – The Calgary Flames have re-signed defenceman Ilya Solovyov and centre Cole Schwindt, the NHL club announced Wednesday.
Solovyov signed a two-year deal which is a two-way contract in year one and a one-way deal in year two and carries an average annual value of US$775,000 at the NHL level.
Schwindt signed a one-year, two-way contract with an average annual value of $800,000 at the NHL level.
The 24-year-old Solovyov, from Mogilev, Belarus, made his NHL debut last season and had three assists in 10 games for the Flames. He also had five goals and 10 assists in 51 games with the American Hockey League’s Calgary Wranglers and added one goal in six Calder Cup playoff games.
Schwindt, from Kitchener, Ont., made his Flames debut last season and appeared in four games with the club.
The 23-year-old also had 14 goals and 22 assists in 66 regular-season games with the Wranglers and added a team-leading four goals, including one game-winning goal, in the playoffs.
Schwindt was selected by Florida in the third round, 81st overall, at the 2019 NHL draft. He came to Calgary in July 2022 along with forward Jonathan Huberdeau and defenceman MacKenzie Weegar in the trade that sent star forward Matthew Tkachuk to the Panthers.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
KING CITY, Ont. – Oman scored 10 runs in the final over to edge Nepal by one wicket with just one ball remaining in ICC Cricket World Cup League 2 play Wednesday.
Kaleemullah, the No. 11 batsman who goes by one name, hit a four with the penultimate ball as Oman finished at 223 for nine. Nepal had scored 220 for nine in its 50 overs.
Kaleemullah and No. 9 batsman Shakeel Ahmed each scored five in the final over off Sompal Kami. They finished with six and 17 runs, respectively.
Opener Latinder Singh led Oman with 41 runs.
Nepal’s Gulsan Jha was named man of the match after scoring 53 runs and recording a career-best five-wicket haul. The 18-year-old slammed five sixes and three-fours in his 35-ball knock, scoring 23 runs in the 46th over alone when he hit six, six, four, two, four and one off Aqib Ilyas.
Captain Rohit Paudel led Nepal with 60 runs.
The 19th-ranked Canadians, who opened the triangular series Monday with a 103-run win over No. 17 Nepal, face No. 16 Oman on Friday, Nepal on Sunday and Oman again on Sept. 26. All the games are at the Maple Leaf Cricket Ground.
The eight World League 2 teams each play 36 one-day internationals spread across nine triangular series through December 2026. The top four sides will go through to a World Cup qualifier that will decide the last four berths in the expanded 14-team Cricket World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
Canada (5-4) stands second in the World League 2 table. The 14th-ranked Dutch top the table at 6-2.
Oman (2-2 with one no-result) stands sixth, ahead of Nepal (1-5).
Canada won all four matches in its opening tri-series in February-March, sweeping No. 11 Scotland and the 20th-ranked host Emirates. But the Canadians lost four in a row to the 18th-ranked U.S. and host Netherlands in August.
Canada which debuted in the T20 World Cup this summer in the U.S. and West Indies, is looking to get back to the showcase 50-over Cricket World Cup for the first time since 2011 after failing to qualify for the last three editions. The Canadian men also played in the 1979, 2003 and 2007 tournaments, exiting after the group stage in all four tournament appearances.
The Canadian men regained their one-day international status for the first time in almost a decade by finishing in the top four of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier Playoff in April 2023 in Bermuda.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024
PENTICTON, B.C. – Rick Tocchet has already warned his Vancouver Canucks players — the looming NHL season won’t be easy.
The team made strides last year, the head coach said Wednesday ahead of training camp. The bar has been raised for this year’s campaign.
“To get to the next plateau, there are higher expectations and it’s going to be hard. We know that,” Tocchet said in Penticton, B.C., where the team will open its camp on Thursday.
“So that’s the next level. It starts day one (on Thursday). My thing is don’t waste a rep out there.”
The Canucks finished atop the Pacific Division with a 50-23-9 record last season, then ousted the Nashville Predators from the playoffs in a gritty, six-game first-round series. Vancouver then fell to the Edmonton Oilers in a seven-game second-round set.
Last fall, Jim Rutherford, the Canucks president of hockey operations, said everything would have to go right for the team to make a playoff push. That doesn’t change this season, he said, despite last year’s success.
“The challenges will be greater, certainly. But I believe the team that we started with last year, we have just as good a team to start the season this year and probably better,” he said.
“As long as the team builds off what they did last year, stick to what the coaches tell them, stick to the system, stick together in good times and bad times, this team has a chance to do pretty well.”
Some key players will be missing as Vancouver’s training camp begins, however.
Canucks general manager Patrik Allvin announced Wednesday that star goalie Thatcher Demko will not be on the ice when the team begins it’s pre-season preparation.
Allvin did not disclose the reason for Demko’s absence, but said the 28-year-old American has been making progress.
“He’s been in working extremely hard and he seems to be in a great mindset,” the GM said.
Demko missed several weeks of the regular season and much of Vancouver’s playoff run last spring with a knee injury.
The six-foot-four, 192-pound goalie has a career 213-116-81 regular-season record with a .912 save percentage, a 2.79 goals-against average and eight shutouts across seven seasons with the Canucks.
Allvin also announced that veteran centre Teddy Blueger and defensive prospect Cole McWard will also miss the start of training camp after each had “minor lower-body surgery.”
Vancouver previously announced winger Dakota Joshua won’t be present for the start of camp as he recovers from surgery for testicular cancer.
Tocchet said he’ll have no problem filling the holes, and plans to switch his lines up a lot in Penticton.
“Nothing’s set in stone,” he said. “I think it’s important that you have different puzzles at different times.”
The coach added that he expects standout centre Elias Pettersson to begin on a line with Canucks newcomer Jake DeBrusk.
Vancouver inked DeBrusk, a former Boston Bruins forward, to a seven-year, US$38.5 million deal when the NHL’s free agent market opened on July 1.
The glare on Pettersson is expected to be bright once again as he enters the first year of a new eight-year, $92.8 million contract. The 25-year-old Swede struggled at times last season and put 89 points (34 goals, 55 assists) in 82 games.
Rutherford said he was impressed with how Pettersson looked when he returned to Vancouver ahead of camp.
“He seems to be a guy that’s more relaxed and more comfortable. And for obvious reasons,” said the president of hockey ops. “This is a guy that I believe has worked really hard this summer. He’s done everything he can to play as a top-line player. … The expectation for him is to be one of the top players on our team.”
A number of Canucks hit milestones last season, including Quinn Hughes, who led all NHL defencemen in scoring with 92 points and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top blue liner.
Several players could once again have career-best years for Vancouver, Tocchet said, but they’ll need to be consistent and not allow frustration to creep in when things go wrong.
“You’ve just got to drive yourself every day when you have a great year,” the coach said. “You’ve got to keep creating that environment where they can achieve those goals, whatever they are. And the main goal is winning. That’s really what it comes down to.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
