Report: Leafs insider reports the team has signed William Nylander

Is it FINALLY all over? Official announcement to come?

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 5 years ago
Report: Leafs insider reports the team has signed William Nylander
Zuma Press

It’s been exactly 150 days since William Nylander’s three year, entry level contract expired with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Since then Leafs fans have been subject to trade rumors, salary negotiation reports and other such nonsense regarding Nylander but still… no contract signing to report. 

On late Sunday evening Leafs fans FINALLY received a bit of hope in the Nylander Saga. Leafs insider Howard Berger formerly of The Fan 590 and TSN sent out a since deleted Tweet that seemed to indicate Nylander had signed a deal. The Tweet is history, but we happen to have a history of what was said. 

Check it out:

 “Loud, though unconfirmed, whisper tonight that Leafs and William Nylander have agreed on a contract. Announcement Monday?”


Of course, that announcement never came and Berger has since deleted the Tweet, so we’re left to wonder if Berger was forced to take it down or if he simply wanted to wipe the egg off his face…

In any case, Nylander has until just Saturday at 5pm ET to sign a deal with the Leafs or he’ll be forced to sit out for the entirety of the 2018-19 season. One way or another, this standoff is going to resolve itself by late Saturday afternoon.

In other Leafs news, the managed to get past the Boston Bruins 4-2 last night thanks in large part to three assists from Leafs forward Mitch Marner, who is now second in NHL in assists with 27 this season, just one shy of leader Mikko Rantanen of the Colorado Avalanche. The 21 year old forward is blossoming right now and there’s no one more excited to stand witness to his development then head coach Mike Babcock.

Check out what Babcock had to say about Marner following last night’s victory:

I think that’s what you think with all good players, is it not? If you are watching them, you think when #88 (David Pastrnak) gets the puck, he is playing a different game than everybody else, too.
What is amazing is that most of us have no time and space whatsoever. We’re just banging it here and banging it there and chasing it. The other guys just seem to have all the time in the world. That’s what you’re talking about. They’re gliding all over the rink and it seems effortless and it seems like fun. It seems like they have the puck all the time and you can’t figure out why. They’re just better than everybody else.

Indeed Marner has been “better than everybody else” for awhile now. It’s only a matter of time until fans around the NHL wake up to just how good this kid truly is. He’s not merely a complimentary player in Auston Matthews’ or John Tavares’ shadow… he’s a player capable of driving offence, putting up points and winning hockey games on his own.

As for the rest of his team’s performance last night, Babcock was satisfied:

 I thought, to be honest with you, we got off to a good start. I thought we were playing good. I thought they were better than us in the second period, especially in the first 15 minutes. They had two power plays where we couldn’t clear the puck. We had multiple opportunities to and we didn’t, and then they scored.
They didn’t score on the second one, but they could’ve easily scored. I thought it took us a while to kind of recover after that and get playing the way we could. And then I thought the third period was pretty even.
The power plays — obviously, we scored on the power play, but their power play was very dangerous the two times they had it there in the second. I thought that was when they tilted the game and had it going their way.

Next up on the Leafs schedule is the San Jose Sharks at home in Toronto tomorrow evening. The team is currently riding a two game winning streak and is 7-3-0 in their last 10 games.