Contracts for the Big-3

[Kin]

Are you advocating Radulov as a good signing?

No, I'm using him as an example of what the market pegs that rate of scoring at.

Although under that deal he has 83 points in 89 games so it's not like it's Clarkson territory.

 

[herman]

I?m not saying this with any kind of spite or any vitriol because of the contract negotiations. But am I the only one who remembers nylander over the last 2 seasons would would just be completely invisible for games on end and then explode for 5-6 games and then go back to being complete unnoticeable? I wanted to look up game by game logs but I just don?t feel like it right now.

My impression of him was a lot like mogilny; when he?s on he?s fantastic but when he?s not he?s just out there skating circles and not contributing.

I think this may be one of those cases of a player who's fairly good at the quiet things not getting noticed for them. I mean, for starters the "scores in bunches" thing gets said about a lot of scoring wingers. People here certainly said it about Kessel in addition to Mogilny. I think it's sort of the nature of guys like that where if you're seen primarily as a scorer and you don't score, the things you do well despite not scoring tend to disappear in the memory because you're not doing your primary task.

With Nylander though, I think there's evidence that it's not particularly true. He's certainly not a defensive stalwart or anything but we've seen in this thread the evidence of his good rate of stick checks and zone entries, we're talked about his good possession numbers, I've certainly pointed out that he took more than 600 faceoffs last year, winning them at a decent clip(51.4%) and so on.

Obviously there's no way of knowing if he was only good in some games and bad in long stretches of others but I think the accumulated evidence probably suggests that he was still contributing even in games where he wasn't on the score sheet.

The scoring in bunches thing is a normal thing for scorers. If you look at Nylander?s performance the past two seasons, he is more consistent than Matthews and Marner in that there are not too many stretches of him not hitting scoresheet, all on secondary PP time and much less ice time than is normal for first line forwards.

https://twitter.com/arvi/status/1061760535295709184

This is extremely comparable to his good buddy Pastrnak, who signed his deal before he exploded in the playoffs a couple of years ago. He is also obviously super underpaid, even though he has played consistently with Bergeron and Marchand.

If you want to only look at boxcar stats, you?re looking at 6.75M on 6 years easily. If you?re looking at the rate stats and deeper analytical contexts, you should take 8M and run laughing to the bank because Nylander generates in the Top 30 in the league.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I?m not saying this with any kind of spite or any vitriol because of the contract negotiations. But am I the only one who remembers nylander over the last 2 seasons would would just be completely invisible for games on end and then explode for 5-6 games and then go back to being complete unnoticeable? I wanted to look up game by game logs but I just don?t feel like it right now.

In the past 2 seasons Nylander never once went more than 3 straight games without a point. That's incredibly consistent for a scoring winger.

 

[herman]

The only reason this contract is a point of contention is because Dubas needs to set a salary program that makes sure Marner and Matthews combined are not a huge hindrance. Give an inch here and lose a mile with the follow up contracts.

Personally, I?d pay my stars (of which Nylander is easily one), and cycle the rest. Bye Brown because Moore and Timashov and even Marhment are coming up for sub-1M for a couple years or three.

 

[Joe S.]

Thanks for the facts. I guess my perception was far off from reality.

 

[Phileas Fogg]

I?m not saying this with any kind of spite or any vitriol because of the contract negotiations. But am I the only one who remembers nylander over the last 2 seasons would would just be completely invisible for games on end and then explode for 5-6 games and then go back to being complete unnoticeable? I wanted to look up game by game logs but I just don?t feel like it right now.

In the past 2 seasons Nylander never once went more than 3 straight games without a point. That's incredibly consistent for a scoring winger.

I thought I'd check out a few players and see if this is indeed overly relevant. I noticed that Hyman last year only had one 5 game stretch LY where this wasn't the case, and has continued with no more than 3 games without a point into this season also. I guess Hyman is an incredibly consistent scoring winger as well.

 

[sickbeast]

I'm just throwing this out there for the sake of it being a crazy idea.  But what if the Leafs offer Nylander an absurd one year contract at this point?  They have the cap space this season.  Even a two year deal with a signing bonus or something.  Just to get him signed.  Deal with him again in a year or two once Marleau is off the books.

 

[Kin]

I'm just throwing this out there for the sake of it being a crazy idea.  But what if the Leafs offer Nylander an absurd one year contract at this point?  They have the cap space this season.  Even a two year deal with a signing bonus or something.  Just to get him signed.  Deal with him again in a year or two once Marleau is off the books.

What's the advantage in it being absurd? Is the assumption that Nylander wouldn't sign a reasonable bridge deal? Because we have no way of knowing if that's true.

 

[CarltonTheBear]

I thought I'd check out a few players and see if this is indeed overly relevant. I noticed that Hyman last year only had one 5 game stretch LY where this wasn't the case, and has continued with no more than 3 games without a point into this season also. I guess Hyman is an incredibly consistent scoring winger as well.

Hyman had two 4-game stretches and one 5-game stretch without a point last season. The season before that he had one 12-game stretch, three 4-game stretches, one 9-game stretch, one 5-game stretch, and one 7-game stretch without recording a point. So no I don't think that's really comparable to what Nylander did over his past two seasons. Especially since the most impressive thing about the Nylander stat is that he did it in back-to-back seasons.

Marner from last season: two 4-game stretches, one 5-game stretch, one 7-game stretch. To his credit all but one of the 4-game stretches occurred in the first half of the season (where he struggled to produce goals/points quite a bit, something most people don't seem to remember).

 

[herman]

Nylander also had equal, if not better numbers than Pastrnak leading up to the NHL, playing as a teenaged centre in pro leagues. When they got to the NHL, it was pretty similar at first and diverged with their usage.

Pastrnak's pro-rated points for his first 3 NHL seasons: 48 (27 pts in 46 games), 42 (26 in 51 gp), 76.5 (70 in 75 gp)
Nylander's: 48 (13 in 22 gp), 61.75 (61 in 81 gp), 61 in 82 gp

Pastrnak was elevated to the Bruins earlier because the Leafs were tanking and wanted to keep Willy out of the tire fire; that half-year of experience with Bergeron (a top-5 centre) clearly paid off. Nylander's most experienced linemate coming into the league was PA Parenteau, opposite Zach Hyman.

 

[princedpw]

Signs there is no news on Nylander?s contract: we are now discussing consecutive games without a point of his comparables as if that is a first-order factor in the negotiations.

 

[herman]

Signs there is no news on Nylander?s contract: we are now discussing consecutive games without a point of his comparables as if that is a first-order factor in the negotiations.

What we're doing here is dispelling myths and narratives that have crept into the Leafs zeitgeist because Willy's not blindly signing the first low-ball deal that comes his way.

 

[Kin]

Signs there is no news on Nylander?s contract: we are now discussing consecutive games without a point of his comparables as if that is a first-order factor in the negotiations.

I think that was just a point in the larger question of whether or not Nylander is consistently helping the team.

 

[princedpw]

Nylander also had equal, if not better numbers than Pastrnak leading up to the NHL, playing as a teenaged centre in pro leagues. When they got to the NHL, it was pretty similar at first and diverged with their usage.

Pastrnak's pro-rated points for his first 3 NHL seasons: 48 (27 pts in 46 games), 42 (26 in 51 gp), 76.5 (70 in 75 gp)
Nylander's: 48 (13 in 22 gp), 61.75 (61 in 81 gp), 61 in 82 gp

Pastrnak was elevated to the Bruins earlier because the Leafs were tanking and wanted to keep Willy out of the tire fire; that half-year of experience with Bergeron (a top-5 centre) clearly paid off. Nylander's most experienced linemate coming into the league was PA Parenteau, opposite Zach Hyman.

For me, the performance in the platform year is the most relevant.  In that year, Pasternak looks more impressive to me, though it certainly is difficult to know how to factor in the linemates, power play time, and other context.

 

[Kin]

What we're doing here is dispelling myths and narratives that have crept into the Leafs zeitgeist because Willy's not blindly signing the first low-ball deal that comes his way.

One of the things I'm fairly concerned about is Nylander signing late, not having a great season, the Leafs not meeting all their expectations and an inordinate amount of dumb fan criticism falling on Nylander.

The further and further this goes, the more and more I just can't see Dubas' strategy here as being a good one. The world where whatever the difference is between Dubas' offer and Nylander's ask becomes more significant to their winning than everyone playing and happy seems pretty remote.

 

[princedpw]

What we're doing here is dispelling myths and narratives that have crept into the Leafs zeitgeist because Willy's not blindly signing the first low-ball deal that comes his way.

One of the things I'm fairly concerned about is Nylander signing late, not having a great season, the Leafs not meeting all their expectations and an inordinate amount of dumb fan criticism falling on Nylander.

The further and further this goes, the more and more I just can't see Dubas' strategy here as being a good one. The world where whatever the difference is between Dubas' offer and Nylander's ask becomes more significant to their winning than everyone playing and happy seems pretty remote.

In the abstract, I?m not happy, but we have so little information about what the details of the offers are.

 

[Kin]

In the abstract, I?m not happy, but we have so little information about what the details of the offers are.

Sure, but I think we can make fairly reasonable assumptions. I don't think Dubas would be wasting anyone's time offering less than 6, I seriously doubt Nylander is asking for above what Draisaitl got(if he was, I think all of those reports of "in the neighbourhood of Draisaitl's deal" would be more specific).

If nothing else though, this negotiation I hope puts an end to the way we evaluate GMs with respect to contracts. When Lamoriello left a lot of the things people put in his "good" column was getting Rielly/Kadri to sign at the prices/terms they did. Now, though, I think it's probably as wrong to give him credit for that(or blame Dubas for what's going on now) as it would be to give him credit for winning the Lottery and landing Matthews. What players want and what they're willing to sign for isn't really something in their control. 

 

[ZBBM]

What we're doing here is dispelling myths and narratives that have crept into the Leafs zeitgeist because Willy's not blindly signing the first low-ball deal that comes his way.

One of the things I'm fairly concerned about is Nylander signing late, not having a great season, the Leafs not meeting all their expectations and an inordinate amount of dumb fan criticism falling on Nylander.

The further and further this goes, the more and more I just can't see Dubas' strategy here as being a good one. The world where whatever the difference is between Dubas' offer and Nylander's ask becomes more significant to their winning than everyone playing and happy seems pretty remote.

Dubas has been pretty magical in all his moves to date.  Until now.  If he can't get Nylander signed there's no way to view it as anything other than a failure for him, in his first big negotiation.

 

[Kin]

Dubas has been pretty magical in all his moves to date.  Until now.  If he can't get Nylander signed there's no way to view it as anything other than a failure for him, in his first big negotiation.

I don't know about "failure" but I think it's going to really look bad for him. I also think it's going to reflect badly on other things he's done.

Tavares being the biggest example. I like Tavares a lot. I think he's a terrific player, but I'm not entirely sure I take Tavares at age 28-36 at 11m over Nylander age 22-30 for 8m.

 

[L K]

Dubas has been pretty magical in all his moves to date.  Until now.  If he can't get Nylander signed there's no way to view it as anything other than a failure for him, in his first big negotiation.

I don't know about "failure" but I think it's going to really look bad for him. I also think it's going to reflect badly on other things he's done.

Tavares being the biggest example. I like Tavares a lot. I think he's a terrific player, but I'm not entirely sure I take Tavares at age 28-36 at 11m over Nylander age 22-30 for 8m.

It's certainly a fair question.  Tavares today is certainly better than Nylander.  Right now he's on pace for 48 goals and over PPG pace.  I don't think those are numbers I necessarily ever expect Nylander to hit (even with assists flipped over goals).