Anytime a burgeoning young star holds out for a long-term extension, the rest of the league takes note. What can the New York Rangers learn from William Nylander’s holdout from the Toronto Maple Leafs?
When it comes to player rights, the NHL lags far behind most other professional sports leagues. Following the 2004-2005 lockout that wiped out the entirety of the season, the owners and players association worked out a collective bargaining agreement that vastly favored the owners. A player not being able to reach unrestricted free agency until age 27 is pretty absurd.
The only league with a comparable system is Major League Baseball in which the players lack control of their careers until their mid to late 20s. This system that drastically favors ownership has a variety of impacts which viciously feed into the cycle and create more problems for both sides.
Since players cannot earn true market value until age 27, those first UFA contracts are typically bloated because it’s that particular person’s first and usually only chance at a big payday. The restricted free agent system artificially depresses player wages and creates these environments in which agents and families can push for a holdout.
Now, William Nylander did ultimately end up getting a massive payday. A six-year deal with an average annual value of $6.92 million is nothing to sneeze at. The forward’s contract represents 9.2 percent of the 2017-2018 salary cap ceiling of $75 million. With an expected cap increase next year, this deal looks pretty good relatively speaking.
Yet, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ contract situation means that the team is only going to have a one or two year window to compete for the Stanley Cup with its core of Nylander, John Tavares, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. Since Marner and Matthews both require extensions following this year, the team is likely going to have to make a decision.
What New York can learn
Relatively speaking, the New York Rangers won’t find themselves in a similar situation to Toronto for a few seasons. All of its young key players are still on entry-level deals and lack the leverage of one of Toronto’s players. Nylander had leverage as a player who had scored 60 plus points in his age 20 and 21 seasons.
None of Pavel Buchnevich, Filip Chytil or Lias Andersson have the track record to prove themselves worthy of a long-term extension prior to hitting restricted free agency. Nylander is such a talented player, the Maple Leafs were willing to pay a premium price for restricted free agent years. Toronto could’ve manipulated its position and just allowed Nylander to sit out the year or trade him.
The major lesson for New York comes in contract negotiations and managing player egos. There will come a day when the Rangers’ front office needs to juggle two or three massive player contracts while trying to stay competitive and not gutting the bottom half of the roster. Toronto had its three best players on entry-level deals last year.
Now, it brought in Tavares, extended Nylander and needs to resolve both Matthews and Marner. The Rangers’ front office can only hope to have such problems in the future. If Rangers’ G.M. Jeff Gorton has to decide between Andersson, Chytil, Vitali Kravtsov and K’Andre Miller for a 6-year deal worth $7 million per, he’s done his job well.
New York needs to manage its young players well and keep them in the loop. Managing egos is difficult but part of team building none the less.