If The Toronto Maple Leafs Don't Want To Pay William Nylander, I Know A Team With Plenty Of Cap Space And In Need Of A Winger With A Filthy Wrist Shot
Training camps are starting to open up for teams all around the league. Most players have already reported back to their cities and there aren’t many guys in the league who are still unsigned headed into the season. But William Nylander is one of them, and considering both sides still seem to be a little ways apart…
…Will Ny The Wrist Shot Guy may not be in Toronto any time soon. And now here’s the thing–I’m sure that Toronto wants to sign William Nylander and lock him up long term. But when you sign John Tavares for $11M per year, then you have Auston Matthews who is going to be commanding Connor McDavid money, well then all of a sudden you have about 7 dollars and 84 cents to work with for the rest of your team. So $8 milli may just be a little out of the budget for William Nylander. So if the Maple Leafs aren’t going to give Slick Willy the money he wants, why doesn’t some team come in an offer sheet his ass? I know that offer sheeting restricted free agents is pretty rare in the NHL since it ends up costing so much to actually take a guy away from the team. But if there is one team out there who has the cap space to afford Nylander, is in need of a top line winger who can pop bottles, and also probably isn’t in dire need to hang on to their draft picks for the next couple of seasons?
Now he’d have to end up being a little more than a 20-goal scorer. But imagine a line of Giroux – Couturier – Nylander. You’d have Couturier breaking up plays in the defensive zone, snap a breakout pass off to Giroux, then Claude will do what Claude does best with the puck and end up throwing a ridiculous set up pass right on the tape to Nylander, and then all he has to do is stuff it in the back of the net. William Nylander would have 20 goals before Thanksgiving playing with those two guys.
So listen. I know that things are starting to get a little difficult for Kyle Dubas up in Toronto. He thought the job was cake in the beginning of the summer because all he had to do was throw a piece of paper in front of John Tavares and he landed the biggest free agent on the market. But now is when the job actually starts for him. When he has to figure out a way to pay all of these guys the money that they deserve without only being able to afford like 5 guys and rostering the rest of the lineup with a bunch of beer leaguers. The Flyers can offer a little relief in this situation. Make things easier for Kyle Dubas so that he doesn’t lose his goddamn mind. Let the Flyers help you, Kyle. Let us help you help us help you. Just saying.
P.S. – How pissed is Mitch Marner about this new rule? Life was good when he could just blame Lou for the baby face.