Nylander on record $92M deal: Toronto is home
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Kristen Shilton, ESPN NHL reporter
TORONTO — William Nylander never has been much for words.
And it didn’t take many for the Maple Leafs‘ winger to explain why he agreed to an eight-year, $92 million contract on Monday that will have him skipping free agency this summer to stick in Toronto for the bulk of his career.
“This has been home for me,” said Nylander, in typical simplistic fashion. “This is the longest I’ve ever spent in one place in my entire life. It’s funny, the other day I was talking to a friend, and I said, ‘and then we go home’ in referring to Toronto. Without even thinking about it, this was home.”
The Calgary-born, Sweden-raised Nylander can now start seriously planting some roots. The fresh contract extension kicks in next season to carry him through 2032 and comes replete with a full no-movement clause. It’s also the richest total value deal Toronto has ever offered a player, underscoring the treasured position Nylander has come to hold within the organization.
It was the Leafs who drafted Nylander eighth overall in 2014 and they’ve since shepherded the robustly talented forward through years of inconsistency to eventually have him develop into one of the NHL’s premier wingers.
That evolution earned Nylander a paycheck on par with the Leafs’ other vaunted core players — namely Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Mitch Marner — and those four skaters will now eat up over $40 million of Toronto’s cap space next year. It’s a major endowment from Leafs’ brass, and one Nylander claims he and his teammates appreciate.
“I think it’s huge as a player to feel that [management is] really investing in the core and betting on us,” he said. “And I think that we feel the same way. That’s ultimately why I wanted to stay here for eight years was I wanted to give it a run to try to win the [Stanley] Cup. Before I signed here [I said] how important that was to me. I know what our group is capable of. We have some stretches throughout the season that you guys might not think it, but I know what we’re able to do. I know myself and all the other guys in the core. We’ve all grown.”
No one more than Nylander himself. The 27-year-old has produced 198 goals and 484 points through 558 NHL games to date, and this season has been Nylander’s greatest opening act. He’s already produced a franchise-record 17-game point streak to start the year (complete with 12 goals and 27 points) and is currently fifth overall in NHL scoring with 21 goals and 54 points in 37 games.
It took years for Nylander to reach that elite pinnacle in his play. Leafs’ coach Sheldon Keefe knows the process he went through to get there better than anyone. He’s been with Nylander from the beginning, coaching him as a 19-year-old with the American Hockey League’s Toronto Marlies and at the NHL level since 2019. All along Keefe’s been pulling and pushing to get the best out of Nylander on a nightly basis. It was last year when Keefe started seeing the fruits of their combined efforts in helping Nylander ascend to his loftiest heights yet.
“He’s spoken a lot about being a top player in the league and being relied upon in all situations for our team and that’s been his ambition,” said Keefe. “He has done the work and I think he’s grown a tremendous amount. He’s on another level this season and to me the way that he takes care of his body on and off the ice and the internal motivation that he has and the drive to help our team win, we’re pretty excited to coach this version of Willie that he’s evolved into over the years.”
Whether this early success ultimately drove up the asking price for Nylander’s services long-term was a relatively moot point for Leafs’ general manager Brad Treliving when negotiating the new deal. Despite speculation that Nylander might have been less expensive to extend over the summer, Treliving said the bottom line was both sides had a goal in mind and were able to find common ground.
“When you have the starting point of a player that wants to be here, and a team that wants to keep him, usually you can get it done,” said Treliving. “Listen, it’s a big contract. It’s a lot of money. And so you go through that process, but I don’t if there was ever an ‘aha moment.’ You arm wrestle. You go through it. But I don’t think there was ever a time where we felt we weren’t going to get to the finish line.”
This is the second massive contract Treliving has finalized since replacing Kyle Dubas last spring as Toronto’s GM. He previously inked Matthews to a four-year, $53 million extension in August to keep him from reaching free agency in 2024, and now Treliving has Nylander locked in, too. Doling out big paydays to a few players — especially when Toronto hasn’t had the playoff success in recent years to back up that strategy — has naturally called into question how the Leafs will manage their limited cap space scenario from here.
Treliving’s stance seemed to be taking it one day — or one contract — at a time.
“Certainly, there’s always challenges, right?” he said. “And I think all we can do is tackle these things when they come up. I got here [as GM] and Auston was the priority. Auston and Willie were both going into their final years. We were able to get those done. And now you see what’s next on the list, right? You’re going to have a cap that increases, but we’re also not blind to the fact that there’s other areas of our team as we move forward that you have to improve. And we’ll continue to do that. But for right now, we got a really good player signed [today].”
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Greg Wyshynski
NHL teams don’t necessarily need a goaltender that can drag them to the Stanley Cup, mostly because those types of netminders are unicorns. What they need is a goalie that can make a save at a critical time; and, perhaps most of all, not lose a game for the team in front of them.
As the NHL playoff picture comes into focus, so does the quality of every team’s most important position. Will their goaltending be the foundation for a playoff berth and postseason run? Or is it the fatal flaw in their designs on the Stanley Cup?
The NHL Bubble Watch is our monthly check-in on the Stanley Cup playoff races using playoff probabilities and points projections from Stathletes for all 32 teams. This month, we’re also giving each contending team a playoff quality goaltending rating based on the classic Consumer Reports review standards: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor.
We also reveal which teams shouldn’t worry about any of this because they’re lottery-bound already.
But first, a look at the projected playoff bracket:
Ohio State‘s 34-23 victory over Notre Dame in Monday night’s College Football Playoff National Championship game was the most-watched game of the season. However, it was a double-digit drop in viewers from last year.
ESPN announced Wednesday that the Buckeyes’ second national championship in the CFP era averaged 22.1 million viewers. It was the most-watched, non-NFL sporting event over the past year, but a 12% drop from the 25 million who tuned in for Michigan’s 34-13 victory over Washington in 2024.
It was the third-lowest audience of the 11 CFP title games, with all three occurring in the past five years. The audience peaked at 26.1 million viewers during the second quarter (8:30 to 8:45 p.m. ET) when the score was tied at 7.
Since Alabama’s 26-23 overtime victory over Georgia in 2018, the past seven title games have had an average margin of victory of 25.4 points. Ohio State had a 31-7 lead midway through the third quarter before Notre Dame rallied to get within one possession with five minutes remaining in the fourth.
Georgia’s 65-7 rout of TCU in 2023 was the least-viewed title game (17.2 million) followed by Alabama’s 52-24 win over Ohio State in 2021 (18.7 million). The first title game in 2015 — the Buckeyes’ 42-20 victory over Oregon — remains the most-watched college football game by viewers in the CFP era, according to Nielsen at 33.9 million.
This was the first year of the 12-team field. The first round averaged 10.6 million viewers with the quarterfinals at 16.9 million. The semifinals averaged 19.2 million, a 17% decline from last year. Both semifinal games in 2024 though were played on Jan. 1. Michigan’s OT victory over Alabama in the Rose Bowl drew a bigger audience (27.7 million) than the Wolverines’ win in the title game.
CFP games ended up being nine of the 10 most-viewed this season. Georgia’s OT win over Texas in the SEC championship on ABC/ESPN was sixth at 16.6 million.
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Ben Baby
CINCINNATI — A familiar face is headed back to the Cincinnati Bengals.
Notre Dame defensive coordinator Al Golden is expected to join the Bengals in the same role, sources told ESPN’s Pete Thamel on Wednesday. The news comes two days after the Fighting Irish lost to Ohio State in the College Football Playoff National Championship game.
Golden, 55, spent the past three seasons as Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator. He replaces Lou Anarumo, who held the post for the past six seasons before he was fired after the Bengals missed the postseason.
This will be Golden’s second stint on Zac Taylor’s coaching staff. Before taking the job at Notre Dame, he was Cincinnati’s linebackers coach during the 2020 and 2021 seasons. During those years, Golden played an integral role in leading a defense that helped the Bengals reach the Super Bowl for the first time in 33 years.
The Fighting Irish’s defense was a major reason why Notre Dame was a win away from its first national championship since 1988. Entering the CFP final against the Buckeyes, Notre Dame’s defense ranked fourth among Power 4 teams in points allowed per drive (1.21), according to ESPN Research.
He will be tasked with leading a Bengals defense that looks vastly different from just a couple of years ago. Staples from that Super Bowl team, including safety Jessie Bates III and defensive tackle DJ Reader, departed in free agency in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Last season, Anarumo was tasked with balancing a group that featured aging veterans, injuries at key positions and inexperience at others.
Eventually, the defense figured things out during the Bengals’ five-game winning streak to close the regular season. But with Cincinnati missing the postseason for a second straight year, Taylor opted for a staff shake-up. Along with Anarumo, offensive line coach Frank Pollack and defensive line coach Marion Hobby were among those who were not retained.
On Monday, Cincinnati announced Scott Peters as Pollack’s replacement and Michael McCarthy as the assistant offensive line coach. Later in the day, Anarumo was hired as the Indianapolis Colts’ defensive coordinator.
The Bengals will need to improve a unit that finished near the bottom of the league in several key categories. Last season, Cincinnati was 26th in points allowed per drive, 30th in defensive red zone efficiency and 30th in first downs allowed per game, according to ESPN Research.
Cincinnati is trying to build around star quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase as the team looks to end a two-year playoff drought. Burrow was named to his second Pro Bowl following a career year. Chase made his fourth Pro Bowl in as many NFL seasons and joined defensive end Trey Hendrickson as the team’s first All-Pro selections since 2015.
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