Incorrect, he has 5 years of rfa left. He did not play 40 games in 15-16. If ehlers signed for 7 years at 6m then Nylander should be in the same area. Ehlers deal covers 4 rfa and 3 ufa and begins this season.
Well the player has no rights to ntc or nmc until his 27yo season so that’s out the window, I’m thinking the demands are playing C and PP1 or strictly dollar amount. I remember people saying gaudreau would command north of 7 and he settled under that.
Why would the Leafs offer all their key RFAs contracts at several million dollars AAV above what their comparables around the League are making? This doesn't make any sense, particularly your estimations of Nylander and Marner; they likely wouldn't get that even if they were UFAs, these guys are both RFAs without arbitration rights. Heck, offersheets aren't even an incentive to pull such numbers out; any team that offered Marner $10+ million would have to give the Leafs four 1st round picks as compensation; no one is going to do that.
Woops, my bad, I forgot that an accrued season requires 40 or more NHL games. In my opinion, the problem with the Leafs, contractually, is that they have too many good young players. With the Jets, Scheifele was their highest paid forward when Ehlers signed his contract. Ehlers got paid comparably to Winnipeg's core players (Wheeler at the time & Scheifele). Before Tavares signed, Matthews, Marner, and Nylander were and are considered to be Toronto's forward core. Toronto went out and signed a star player from outside of the organization for $11M long term. There are rumors that Matthews will be paid handsomely, close to what Tavares signed for, and Marner will get paid north of $7M. Nylander may feel that if Toronto considers him just as much as a core player as Tavares, Matthews, and Marner, he should be paid like one. That is why I do not think $6Mx7 is going to get it done for Nylander. If 6 years is on the table, I do think Nylander's cap hit will be closer to $6M . If 7 years is on the table, I think his cap hit will be much closer to $7M, high $6M range.
You can’t compare a ufa to an rfa contract when you talk about Tavares vs the big 3. Matthews was always going to get between eichel and mcdavid and now with Tavares there he creates the upper limit within the team structure. That’s of course unless matthews goes god mode this season and wins some hardware. Marner is going to get more money than Nylander cause he has proven to be a better player than Willy. He generates more offence, he drives the play better and his compete level never wanes. I see Willy getting 6.5 Marner getting 7.5 and matthews between 10-11. That gives them their core 5 forwards for ~40m (Tavares 11 matthews 10-11 Marner 7.5 Nylander 6.5 Kadri 4.5) it’ll be tight but it’s manageable.
