You are way overpaying, and undervaluing Johnsson, Kapanen and Nylander. Like seriously? St. Louis gets both Kap and Nylander AND a 1st round pick?

That happens when your backed against the wall of the salary cap. teams know you have to trade players.

Yes because Nylander is large in part a cap dump at this point with a horrible season and very unnoticeable playoff existence....for a $7M cap hit? No team wants that contract right now and Parayko is one of the best in the NHL. That St. Louis deal is fair by a country mile and if I'm St. Louis i'm probably not taking it either.

This whole take on Nylander was flat out wrong. I don't expect other fans to watch the Leafs, but don't just look at raw point totals with zero context and make a judgement on a season.

I watch a lot of Leafs games and Nylander is not a $7M a year player right now...it's pretty simple. Just like Saad the season before this past was not playing at a $6M a year guy. And if Nylander is a 3C, which I thought he looked best in that role, that's a hefty contract for a 3C for any team to take on.

Is there something in the water that makes Nylander look worse than he is in some cities? He was dragging two black holes of offence around with him and was the ONLY player who could keep them above water (AM couldn't do it, neither could JT or Naz). He was backchecking hard and driving play. Problem was he was a one man line and so there wasn't a whole ton of finish as you can't do it all against the Bruins.
I will be the first to agree that he is better served in a winger role on the Leafs (with Matthews as his C), but he did everything that was asked of him and more in this series, when you consider his circumstances.

You also said he had an awful season. This is blatantly false. He took 2 months to get back in with the league (funny how missing two months takes two months to catch up in the NHL) and was great once in shape. I'd certainly like to see him take another step next year, but once he was back, he was the same Nylander that we paid for and that is worth his contract.

I'm arguing against a strawman here though. What specifically doesn't make him a 6.9 million dollar player in your estimation?

Are you suggesting that Nylander was producing at the last third of the season at the same clip he was in 2017/2018? I think stats would show otherwise.

Let's not play strawman, let's take a look.

Last 30 games of the REGULAR season to go inline with what you are suggesting...his numbers are much worse looking at his entire season (sitting out for 2 months on a holdout is on him to stay in hockey shape which clearly he didn't)
TOTALS: .167gpg, .60ppg (entire season .129gpg, .50ppg)

Clearly off from 2017/2018
TOTALS: .243gpg, .743ppg

So in a nutshell, no Nylander was not himself and while we can make excuses saying he's not playing on a top 2 line and had to anchor a line or say that because he held out it took 2 months for him to get into a hockey shape, I believe both of those are strawman arguments for a contract he's simply is not living up to.

As a good comparable; Brandon Saad who's primary job is a 2 way winger not scoring winger, also spent most of the season anchoring the 3rd line he's a $6M cap hit. Also to note, he started the 2.5 months of the season with dismal numbers and even got benched, but no reason to use a strawman so we'll include his bad 2.5 months but excuse Nylanders.
TOTALS: .287 GPG, and .587 PPG

Points aren't everything but Saad is a good comparable since his primary focus is anchoring a 3rd line and playing the two way game and some would argue his $6M cap hit is a little rich, but Nylander's then would have to be rich and clearly, Nylander is not the player he was last year unless the argument then is, he is a supporting cast member to Matthews and his 2017/2018 numbers reflect that...well if that's the case then again, his $7M cap hit is overpayment.

Kind of like Kane; if you play with Matthews or Kane, your numbers should inflate unless you are a star player yourself that can anchor a line like Panarin proved.

So that all said, I'd argue Nylander as well as Saad are both overpaid and should both be in the $4.5M to $5.5M cap hit range making a $7M cap hit trade partially a cap dump.

Well I can start with ADV stats.



The last one is very obvious when Nylander rejoined Matthews. The other two basically show that over the season he was absolutely snakebitten, compared to mitch (this actually doesn't include his best games as the pic was in march).

In terms of physical points:
You are attempting to use a 30 game sample. HE ONLY PLAYED 54 GAMES! He was certainly disappointing while he was tooling up but once he was there he was there. Also, I don't think it is reasonable to expect someone to stay in NHL mid-season form without playing in the NHL like you say he should have.
Over the last ~1/3rd of his season (march on) he had 11 points, which is a pace of 60 points over a full season.

Can't see the images you are trying to share here.

The stats I ran were the last 30 games; 1/3rd of the season is 27 games.

He only played 54 games. I used from march on, which is 27.~% of the season (maybe should've said a 4th but I digress)
The images show him having a very high expected goals and possession rating, but a very low GF rating. tl;dr he is getting very unlucky. It also gives Marner for comparison which should make all Leaf fans nervous (Marner is exactly the opposite, essentially getting good results but overperforming his play). The third shows Matthews production in xGF% and it was very clear when he united AM and WN together, as it spikes up way above anywhere AM had been in the season (way higher than when he was on that tear at the start of the season.)

Just a note, I made a few edits to the last post, you might wanna just quickly check that out for some more context

Great players can play some of their best hockey out of the gates as long as they are conditioning themselves correctly. They are at their strongest from weight training, and aren't dealing with fatigue and injuries; later in the season that is the biggest issue players face. So for him to come back and have a slow couple week start or even 1 month start...okay I see your point, but 8 to 10 weeks...that's a clear sign he was sitting on the sofa eating twinkies. Which brings up another issue with Nylander; lack of heart and determination. The kid has all the tools to be a top 50 guy and someone better then Saad but he's not; something is off with him and hope he doesn't end up like Saad...a guy that had a lot of potential just never seemed to put it all together.

You say great players play well out of the gate as if this was in anyway comparable to the start of the season. Everyone around him had been playing and practicing for months, they would be far better conditioned and better in sync with their teammates on plays and such. Yeah he did take longer than we would have liked to get back in shape, but to think he should be close to guys who were mid season form compared to a guy who had at best been skating with guys Auston Matthews had dominated at 17 years old is absurd.

That lack of heart and determination is the most bull**** no evidence hatred based idea I have ever seen. It has zero credibility and it is a narrative that needs to die.

No player that has been spending time conditioning, training and on the ice should take 8-10 weeks to get back to form. That's absurb. These guys are professionals who make millions of dollars to stay in top shape; this isn't the local men's beer league. I get there is a couple weeks to a month to get in sync with the guys, but 8 to 10 weeks shows that Nylander was taking a vacation from the game. Look at how Matthews, JT, Kane, Crosby all were playing 1 month into the season; there's a lot that separates the best and the rest and part of that training year round and being in top shape on and off the ice. I don't believe the narrative of anyone saying players need 2 to 3 months to get back in sync...that's BS