William Nylander reportedly has one foot out the door due to Leafs’ tough dilemma

The Toronto Maple Leafs need to find a way to get William Nylander under contract as they juggle a tight cap, contracts and player negotiations. With Nylander commanding a hefty contract extension and top players already committed to a lot of money, like Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, the Maple Leafs have a tough call to make.

According to Sportsnet’s Nick Kypreos, Justin Bourne, and Sam McKee, the Leafs will need to choose between Nylander and Marner. The latter signed a six-year, $65,408,000 deal with the Leafs in September 2019 and has become untouchable in Toronto. The trio of reporters then pointed to involvement of agent Lewis Gross and went on to hint at the Swedish forward’s preference to possibly test free agency in July. Sam McKee explained:

“Well the thing that stuck out to me about this piece and it’s like this seeing it laid out in front of me, was the Lewis Gross aspect of this … maybe they just want to go to UFA.”

When it comes to Nylander and Marner, losing the former could have an impact on the latter on negotiations coming that following summer. There will be a sense of fear losing both elite wingers added to the mix. Toronto will need to be extremely cautious with its salary cap. Justin Bourne said:

“Well sure. And you know the scary part, you know again mentioned in this piece is just that if you lose Willy Nylander, like let’s say you’re like okay, we value the cap space or we were going to trade him at the deadline, or whatever, if you don’t have Willy on your roster, and then it’s Mitch Marner’s turn for negotiation. you’re screwed, because you can’t lose them both.”

On top of all this, as if it weren’t enough to deal with, the Maple Leafs simply cannot lose a player like Nylander for nothing on the free-agent market, like we saw happening to Treliving and the Calgary Flames when Johnny Gaudreau walked out. Bourne added:

“Treliving has made it clear he doesn’t want to do the (Johnny) Gaudreau thing again where he just gets, I can’t do anything and the guy just leaves.”

But is Gross has Nylander considering free agency more and more, is there a blockbuster trade coming soon to Toronto?

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