Maple Leafs' Plans After Auston Matthews' Extension: What's Next?
Auston Matthews is signed. Does that mean William Nylander is next? It may not be that simple.
The Toronto Maple Leafs got some clarity on Wednesday when Auston Matthews signed a four-year, $53 million extension with the club. In addition to the security that comes with locking up one of the best players in the NHL to a new deal, the club got a hard number of what their top players' salary cap hit will be between the 2024-25 and 2027-28 seasons at $13.25 million.
According to PuckPedia.com, the Maple Leafs have a projected salary cap hit of $54,094,667 consisting of 12 players (including Matthews) in the 2024-25 season.
The salary cap is expected to go up dramatically in 2024-25 after years of flat growth brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Assuming an upper-range estimate of $87 million, that could leave Toronto with as much as $32.905 million in cap space to sign an additional 11 players.
Does this mean William Nylander is next for a new contract?
With William Nylander and the Maple Leafs deadlocked in the negotiation process, Matthews' contract has at least set the bar. Toronto's top player received a raise of approximately 13.8 percent from the average annual value of his previous deal. Does that mean Nylander (who is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the upcoming season) is going to accept a similar raise that would see him get paid just dollars under $8 million? Probably not, considering the reported intial ask of $10 million.
And it appears as though the Maple Leafs are willing to wait.
In addition to Nylander, the club will also have decisions to make on Tyler Bertuzzi ($5.5 million), Max Domi ($3 million), TJ Brodie ($5 million), John Klingberg (4.15 million) and Ilya Samsonov ($3.55 million) who all have contracts that expire at the end of the season. Core players Mitch Marner ($10.903 million) and John Tavares ($11 million) have contracts that expire at the end of the 2024-25 season and are eligible to sign extensions on July 1, 2024.
It could get very expensive for Toronto very quickly. So is Nylander a priority? Maybe he is, but it appears as though the Maple Leafs could be ready to wait things out.
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"I think the Maple Leafs are going to say 'Look, we wanted to get Matthews done, we wanted to extend him and we did. And now we're going to let next year play out,'" Sportsnet's Elliott Friedman told the NHL Network when asked about what is next. “'We (the Maple Leafs) can make those decisions late this year or after this season.'”
Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving has been on the job for less than three months. Extending Matthews was a no-brainer. But given everything else that surrounds the team, it makes sense that the new boss wants to get a look at how his players operate in-season before making the next decisions.
There was also that desire to add to the defense. It's not clear if Toronto will have the cap room to do that without moving other players out.
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