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The news that broke on Wednesday afternoon that the Toronto Maple Leafs and Auston Matthews reached an agreement on a contract extension does not come as a surprise. The only uncertainties were the length and amount of the deal.
The club and Matthews representatives at Orr/Wasserman agreed on a four-year deal worth $53 million ($13.25 million AAV), making the 2016 top overall pick the highest-paid player in the NHL starting next season. The deal was favorable to both sides, giving the Leafs single-season financial security and a deal with most of the contract made up of signing bonus, and the ability to become a free agent and sign another deal in 2028, while GM Brad Treliving has successfully locked up one of the best scorers in the league through a good chunk of his prime years.
Now the question will be how will this affect the Leafs going forward and what Treliving will do with the other players who are coming up for new deals in the next two years. Other than Matthews, the only players who are signed past the end of next season are depth forwards David Kampf, Calle Jarnkrok, and Ryan Reeves, and defenseman Morgan Rielly. That gives the Leafs GM a great deal of financial flexibility past the summer of 2025, but between now and then, Toronto will be in a tight squeeze.
The immediate concern is how it will affect the contract negotiations with William Nylander. The club and agent Lewis Gross are reportedly far apart on a new deal, with the winger becoming an unrestricted free agent next summer. Nylander spoke with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek during the NHL’s European summer media tour in Sweden on Wednesday and the 27-year-old winger expressed no hurry in getting a deal done.
“The contract stuff, that’s just for Brad [Treliving] and my agent to dig into. Both side know where each other are at. And right now, we’ll just see what happens,” Nylander said. ”I still have one more year left, so I don’t really understand what the big rush is either to get a deal done. I mean, I got one more year left, we have a great team, and then we go from there.”
The rush here is obviously the prospect of Nylander walking way after next season for nothing as Gross client Johnny Gaudreau did in Calgary with the Leafs only gaining the winger’s $6.9 million in cap space. It is clear that the Leafs want to keep Nylander but only up to a certain price and while keeping the band together so to speak has it’s positives, not signing him and letting him walk away is the worst-case scenario in terms of asset management.
Friedman on his “32 Thoughts” podcast indicated that Treliving’s tactic could be to let this season play out with the likes of Nylander. Tyler Bertuzzi, Max Domi, TJ Brodie, and Ilya Samsonov on expiring contracts, with the thought that some may be willing to take more team-friendly deals before hitting the open market next summer. The other factor will be that both Mitch Marner and John Tavares will be eligible to sign extensions next July.
This is a game of high stakes poker that the Leafs and Treliving could lose. If Nylander scores 40 goals again and gets closer to hitting the open market, he will likely want to test it since Toronto will be unwilling and unable to pay him close to or over the $10 million amount that Gross is reportedly asking for. That means losing out on whatever assets can be acquired in a trade, which could be significant based on the lack of quality offensive players available.
If Nylander leaves, that provides more leverage to Bertuzzi and more importantly to Marner, who will likely be looking to get as close to Matthews AAV (as he did in 2019). The only advantage the Leafs will have in 2025 is that Tavares deal will be expiring and they will be able to either move on or extend him at a much lower salary.
This will make for a very interesting season and endless speculation about potential trades and signings, but the most important thing to come out of this week was the Leafs being able to lock in their franchise player for four additional years.
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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