Nylander gives agent permission to continue talks into season
Published
It appears negotiations on a contract extension between William Nylander and the Toronto Maple Leafs will continue into the upcoming season.
Nylander told Jonas Siegel of The Athletic he has given his agent Lewis Gross permission to continue talks throughout the season. He added, however, that he does not want to be approached on the status of those negotiations until a deal is at the finish line.
The 27-year-old forward is coming off a career year, having posted 40 goals and 87 points in 82 games with the Maple Leafs last season. He added four goals and 10 points in 11 playoff games before the team was eliminated in the second round.
Following his strong campaign, Nylander was ranked at No. 40 on the TSN Hockey Top 50 players list.
Nylander carries a cap hit of $6.96 million in the last season of his current six-year deal.
Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving called re-signing him is a "priority" when training camp opened last month.
"Willy is a really important player and a really good player, and we want to get him done, too,” Treliving told TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun for The Athletic earlier in September. “That’s next on the list.”
A pending unrestricted free agent, Nylander signed his current deal with then-general manager Kyle Dubas in 2018. After being unable to come to a contract agreement that kept him out of the Maple Leafs' lineup to start the 2018-19 season, Nylander inked a deal worth a total of $45 million and carried a value of $10.2 million in the first season, but narrowed to $6.9 million in the years that followed. The deal carries a 10-team no-trade list this season.
He opted not to negotiate a new deal during the 2017-18 season ahead of becoming a restricted free-agent.
“Just focusing on playing. I don’t remember what I was thinking at that point,” Nylander told Siegel of his mindset at that time.
Drafted by the Maple Leafs with the eighth-overall pick in the 2014 NHL Draft, Nylander has scored 177 goals and recorded 430 points in 521 regular-season games.