It’s October 12th, the season is underway and the Maple Leafs still haven’t signed 22-year-old RFA winger William Nylander. According to multiple reports, (and they’re just reports, so take them with a grain of salt), Nylander and the Maple Leafs are not close to a new deal. Toronto would like to sign him at an AAV of $6M/year, while Nylander is rumoured to be looking for something like Leon Draisaitl’s $8.5M/year contract. Both sides want to go long-term. With Nylander unsigned and the Maple Leafs set to endure a cap crunch in the near future, many TV/radio analysts and others around the internet have discussed the possibility of William signing an offer sheet with another team. If you don’t know what an offer sheet is (and I don’t blame you for it since we haven’t seen one used in years), you can read about them here.
It’s commonly known by hockey fans that offer sheets are a rarity in today’s game, yet every time a big-name RFA takes their time to sort out a deal with their current club, fans of other teams around the NHL always seem to get their hopes up. I am here to tell you that you should not get your hopes up (sorry!).
WHICH TEAMS CAN ACTUALLY SEND NYLANDER AN OFFER SHEET?
As I mentioned earlier, Nylander is reportedly looking for in the neighbourhood of around $8.5M/year on a long-term deal. Obviously, the Leafs are not comfortable with signing Nylander to such a contract, or the deal would already be done. Because of this, we can make the assumption that a potential Nylander offer sheet would have to be within the range of $8M per year. According to www.Capfriendly.com, only 8 teams have $8M+ in cap space, and one of them is the Leafs. The other teams are: Nashville, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Colorado, New Jersey, Carolina, and the New York Islanders. The Arizona Coyotes currently have a little over $7.7M and the Ottawa Senators have a little over $7.2M, so we’ll include both of them as they could each make a small move in order to make this happen.
The other thing about offer sheets is that in order to send one to a player you must have the necessary compensation to send the other team’s way. According to Capfriendly again, these are the teams that have the necessary compensation:
This takes the Islanders (sorry, Lou!!), Devils, Predators, and the Senators out of the picture, and leaves us with the Flyers, Canucks, Avalanche, Coyotes, and the Hurricanes as teams that could actually send Nylander an offer sheet.
WHICH TEAMS ACTUALLY WOULD SEND NYLANDER AN OFFER SHEET?
Now that we’ve narrowed it down to just 5 teams that can even send Nylander an offer sheet, let’s narrow it down even further to which teams would actually be interested in doing it.
For the Canucks, it probably doesn’t make a ton of sense. They’re clearly in a rebuilding phase, and they’re not in a position to fork up high draft picks, especially when one of them has a real possibility of becoming Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko. For that reason, I have a hard time seeing Vancouver doing it. Arizona is similar. While they are in a better position than Vancouver currently is, they’re another team that has a solid chance at finishing low in the standings this season. I could see the Coyotes maybe surprising and not being as bad as everybody thinks they'll be thanks to the additions of Galchenyuk, Hinostroza and Grabner and the potential improvement of younger guys like Keller, Strome, Merkley, Perlini, and Fischer, but I’m not sure that they are in a position where they would want to get rid of all of their first three draft picks in this upcoming draft.
For the other three teams, I could see it making sense.
Philadelphia is a young team on the rise, and as we mentioned before, they can afford to do it. Colorado is another team with a lot of youth that made the playoffs last season. Colorado also has a need for secondary scoring, and they have two first round picks in this upcoming draft. It definitely makes sense for them. The Hurricanes have the most cap space in the league, are another young team on the rise, and have had some issues with goal scoring over the last few years, having finished in the bottom half of the NHL in goals for in all of the last 5 seasons. The one problem I could see with Colorado and Carolina is that they both have big-name RFA wingers that need contracts for next season (Rantanen and Aho) and this Nylander contract would probably be used as a comparable in negotiations for both players by their agents. For all of these teams, though it seems to makes enough sense. However....
WOULD NYLANDER ACTUALLY SIGN WITH ANY OF THEM?
An often forgotten part about offer sheets is that it’s like a regular contract in a lot of ways, one being that the player actually has to sign it. Would Nylander rather get paid more but have to move from Toronto, a team trending upwards with a stellar young core, to a team like Philadelphia, Carolina, Colorado, or assuming they would do it even (though they likely wouldn’t), Vancouver or Arizona? None of those teams have the promise or expectations for this season or for the future that Toronto currently has. It also works in Toronto's favour that Nylander has lived in the city for years, was drafted by the franchise and has many good friends on the team. Nylander has also came out and said that he would like to remain with the Leafs, and according to Pierre LeBrun his camp is not looking for an offer sheet. For those reasons, I think it’s safe to say that it’s unlikely that Nylander would sign an offer sheet from one of those teams.
BUT WHAT IF HE DOES?
In the unlikely event that one of those teams offer sheets Nylander and he actually accepts it, the Leafs always have the option to match it. Even if they’re uncomfortable with the contract, I think it’s likely that Toronto would match it and then either keep him and overpay him or they look to trade him.
IN CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, Nylander theoretically could sign an offer sheet and play for another team next season, but it’s highly, highly unlikely. Very few teams can even afford to do it, and even less would actually do it. There’s also always the option of Nylander turning down the offer, and if he accepts it the Leafs would probably just match it, so don’t get your hopes up, opposing team fans.