With the December 1 signing deadline coming up, trade rumors are swirling about Restricted Free Agent William Nylander. The Tampa Bay Lightning won’t, and shouldn’t, pursue him and here’s why.
Every day that passes brings us closer to December and makes Toronto Maple Leafs fans sweat a little more. Despite Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas’ reported steadfast dedication to sign the young and very talented winger, time is running out to strike a deal. If no deal is reached by December 1, William Nylander will be ineligible to play for the rest of the year.
As much as the Maple Leafs may want to sign Nylander, they’re subject to the salary cap too. According to CapFriendly, the Maple Leafs have almost $11.5 million in cap space.
You’d think that would be plenty to get a long-term deal done, but the Maple Leafs have other big contracts to sign coming up, including Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and to a lesser extent, Kasperi Kapanen. All three are coming off of entry-level deals, meaning that their old deals won’t be clearing much cap for the Maple Leafs either.
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This puts the Maple Leafs very firmly in salary cap purgatory and reportedly, that doesn’t garner any sympathy from Nylander like it did from Lightning stars Victor Hedman, Steven Stamkos, and Nikita Kucherov. According to Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston, the Nylander camp was offered a deal similar to that of fellow holdout (for about 30 minutes) David Pastrnak at $40 over 6 years and declined it.
This most likely means that Nylander is looking for upwards of $7 million per year, which seems to be simply out of reach for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The same goes for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Lightning currently finds themselves in a very similar cap purgatory with even less wiggle room, but more of their central pieces locked down. Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman, Yanni Gourde, Ryan McDonagh, J.T. Miller, and Alex Killorn aren’t going anywhere. It’s everyone else that’s the problem.
Next season, Brayden Point, Adam Erne, Cedric Paquette, Danick Martel, Dan Girardi, Anton Stralman, and Braydon Coburn will all need new deals. There’s good news in all of this though, as Coburn, Girardi, and Paquette will likely not be resigned, clearing up close to $8 million in cap space.
Don’t let this fool you though, if a trade was made for Nylander and a deal was struck, Point is good as gone. For the Lightning, any trade for Nylander would all but guarantee losing Point as well as there just won’t be enough money to go around.
Point is much more valuable to the future of the Lightning than Nylander would be. With just two seasons under his belt so far, he’s already emerged as one of the brightest young stars of the game.
Currently, Point has 26 points in 22 games and is second to Kucherov by only one point for the team lead. Just about a quarter of the way through the season, that lands him tied for 9th in the league in point totals. He’s tied with some pretty elite company in John Tavares, Leon Draisaitl, Johnny Gaudreau, and Patrice Bergeron just to name a few.
Obviously, since Nylander hasn’t played a single game this year so far there isn’t a body of work to compare Point’s totals to, but regardless there are several reasons why Point is more valuable to the Lightning than Nylander would be.
For starters, the Lightning already own the rights to Point and don’t have to give anything up to give him a new deal. The Bolts would have to part with significant assets to bring in Nylander, which is unnecessary.
The reported asking price for Nylander is a top-four defenseman and top-nine forward. Offering Slater Koekkoek or Braydon Coburn wouldn’t cut it either. The Maple Leafs would likely be looking for someone that the Lightning would be totally unwilling to part with like Ryan McDonagh or Mikhail Sergachev, or even a promising prospect such as NHL ready Erik Cernak or first-round pick Cal Foote.
Why would the Lightning part with any of that, a forward, and then after all of that, a chunk of prescious cap space just to lose Point at the end of the year?
Another reason why Point is more valuable to the Lightning is the position he plays and his playstyle. The ability to take faceoffs is a valuable asset to any team, and Nylander hasn’t demonstrated that ability like Point has.
In addition to this, Point has proven himself to be a Selke quality forward like Anze Kopitar or Patrice Bergeron with his defensive responsibility. The ability to play a 200-foot game and score goals is incredibly rare, and in his first few seasons Point has shown that he can do that.
Nylander, on the other hand, is more of a scoring forward with less defense in his game. The Lightning already have pure goal scoring in Nikita Kucherov and Steven Stamkos. That’s not to say that they’re defensive liabilities, but their defensive game certainly isn’t what they’re known for. That being said, a forward that can score and be tasked with more defensive responsibility is extremely valuable to an offensive heavy Lightning team.
While it’s fun to speculate about big trades involving your favorite team, this one just won’t happen. Just like with the Erik Karlsson and John Tavares sweepstakes, it’s only natural that rumors will fly. This time, Lightning fans will be able to enjoy them from the sidelines because the Bolts are definitely out of this one.