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Leafs escape the Wild with win; ramifications of the Nylander deal |
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The Toronto Maple Leafs once again relied on their powerhouse offense and the goaltending of Frederik Andersen to salvage them from an effort where the opposition appeared to be the better team, as Nazem Kadri scored the game-winner with 3:20 left in regulation to give the Leafs a 5-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday.
Zach Hyman scored twice, Auston Matthews and Tyler Ennis also scored for Toronto and Andersen made 38 saves for his league leading 15th victory of the season. The Leafs surrendered the lead twice and allow 41 shots on goal, but are winners of four games in a row and 10 on the road this season.
“I didn't think we had our A-game at all in the second half of the game and, yet, we found a way to win. That's the sign of a good team.” Leafs coach Mike Babcock said after the game. “I thought we started okay and then I don't know if we thought it was going to be easy or whatever. (Minnesota is) a big, heavy team that plays real strong in the neutral zone and we turned the puck over.”
The Leafs took an early 2-0 lead on a power play goal by Matthews and an even strength marker by Ennis, but surrendered an Eric Staal goal with 30 seconds left in the first and Jordan Greenway’s tying goal early in the middle frame.
Hyman scored the first of his two goals late in the second on a deflection of a Mitch Marner shot, but Minnesota took control of the game from that point, outshooting the Leafs 18-8 in the third and tying the game on Jason Zucker’s eighth goal of the season.
The game appeared headed for overtime, but Kadri’s stretch pass to Connor Brown resulted in the Leafs center’s shot from an odd angle that pinballed off of two Wild defenders past goalie Devan Dubnyk for the winner.
The game itself was obscured in a sense by the conclusion of the William Nylander saga, as the Leafs locked up the 22-year-old winger to a six-year contract just moments before the 5pm EST Saturday deadline.
"We had a number of discussions all day, culminating with a discussion with Lewis (Gross) at about (4:15 EST). GM Kyle Dubas said after the contract was agreed to. (We) quickly got everything signed and into the league, so it was really down to the wire."
The first year has a cap hit of $10.277 Million (prorated), with a $2 Million signing bonus and the remaining five years have a cap hit of $6.962 Million. Once he is cleared medically and officially added to the 23-man roster, he will likely be reunited with Matthews and get into the lineup either against Detroit on Thursday or in Boston on Saturday and be inserted on the second power play unit.
“I thought obviously it was good news for our hockey club here today. Kyle [Dubas] and [Brandon Pridham] and the guys did a real good job in getting that done.” Babcock said. “It's good they were able to do it. Willy was ecstatic after. He wants to be back here and we want him back here. It'll take us four or five days to get him in the lineup, but as soon as we can we'll get him in.”
In the short term, Nylander’s addition allows Babcock to move Kasperi Kapanen down to the third line with Nazem Kadri, while Connor Brown likely takes Josh Leivo’s spot on the fourth line and either Frederik Gauthier, Martin Marincin or Justin Holl gets placed on waivers.
In spite of the sizable cap hit, the Leafs still maintain plenty of maneuverability under the salary cap after re-signing Nylander for the upcoming February 25th NHL Trade Deadline. Toronto has a real opportunity to load up for a Cup run this season and have $5.15M in projected cap space (according to Cap Friendly) and the option to create more space by placing injured winger Nathan Horton's deal on LTIR, which could be enough room to add a top-four rental defenseman and a left winger.
The long term ramifications of the deal seem perfectly structured for Nylander to be dealt next summer. With Dubas having to re-sign both Marner and Matthews, year two of the contract is nearly all signing bonus ($8.3 Million) and very little in base salary ($700,000), which means after July 1, a team would be acquiring a 23-year-old top-six winger for nearly league-minimum money and the next four years at $6 Million per season. That scenario would be similar to last summer’s Ryan O’Reilly trade, where Buffalo agreed in principle to a deal with St. Louis in late June and traded him after paying a $7 Million bonus on July 1.
There continues to be differing opinion of what the future holds for Nylander, but right now the Leafs are just hoping that he comes in, plays lights out and scores a bunch of goals.
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