Brad Treliving shares an update on William Nylander negotiations

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving was on TSN's 1st Up program this morning to discuss his team's season opener tomorrow night against the Montreal Canadiens when he was asked about the ongoing contract negotiations with pending free agent William Nylander.

Nylander, of course, is set to become an unrestricted free agent after this season unless he and Treliving can come to terms on a contract negotiation. The problem is... there doesn't seem to be too much progress in negotiations.

Check out Treliving's comments from earlier today on 1st Up:

Interviewer: "Brad, can you give us an update, if there is one, on the negotiations between Toronto and Nylander?"

Treliving: "Well, we haven't signed a contract yet, so that's probably my update right now."

Interviewer: "You did say 'yet,' though. You did. Breaking news."

Treliving: "Listen, I've stated it publicly. Nylander's a terrific player. He's a star player, and we want to extend Willie. I've had lots of talks with Willie. He loves Toronto, he loves the franchise, loves the city, the people. So I always think that's a good place to start, but we're not going to talk about it publicly.

Our focus is going to be on the ice. We'll continue to work in the background on the business side, but obviously, Willie's attention is going to be on getting started tomorrow and having a terrific year, and we'll keep plugging away.

And certainly, once we have good news, we'll be sure to let everybody know. But we're not going to do a daily update on it, and hopefully, we can get to a point where we've got good news. But he's a terrific player, and we're hopeful he will be with us for a long time."

- TSN 1st Up

There are insider reports stating that Nylander is looking for $10+ million per season on a long-term deal with the Leafs. But with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and John Tavares all earning $10+ million themselves, it's difficult to see how the team can fit another big salary amongst their forward corps. If that's the case, expect to see Nylander in trade rumors the entire 2023-24 regular season.