GM Brad Treliving discussed William Nylander’s new eight-year, $92 million ($11.5 million AAV) contract extension.
What does it mean to have William Nylander committed to Toronto for eight more years?
Treliving: I think it is important. I said it when I first got here. These are some really good players. They are hard to get. They are hard to keep. When you have them, you try to hold onto them.
I think it is a good day for us — a real good day for us — to get him signed. He is a top player who is — I believe — just entering the prime of his career. We are excited. It is a good day for us.
How would you describe your own emotions on a day like this?
Treliving: It is always a good day when you get a good player signed. You are always grinding. You are grinding through the process.
I know how hard it is to get talent. At the end of the day, every dollar matters because you live in a cap world. You folks can all debate it — and I am sure it will be hotly debated — but at the end of the day, if you can get a top player signed, it is a good day.
From your perspective, what turned things in the right direction in the negotiations to get it across the line?
Treliving: I don’t know if anything turned it. It is a process to go through. When you have the starting point of a player that wants to be here and a team that wants to keep him, usually you find you can get it done.
Listen, it is a big contract. It is a lot of money. You go through that process. I don’t know if there is ever an “aha” moment. You arm wrestle. You go through it. But I don’t think there was ever a time when we felt we weren’t going to get to the finish line because of what I said: The player ultimately wanted to be here. We wanted the player. We found a way.
The speculation was that the price was a little bit cheaper in the summer. Can you walk us through the process of how you got to this number?
Treliving: I am not going to go right through it. I wouldn’t say the price was any cheaper in the summer. This idea that all of a sudden, we got to a point where everybody felt ready to get the deal done… It is like any deal. We always want a little less. The player always wants a little more. We find a way to get a deal done.
At the end of the day, we got a really good player here who is going to be here for eight more years. We are happy about it.
Was there an official signing ceremony? If so, was there some levity when he put pen to paper?
Treliving: You have to give it to Willy. He doesn’t get too excited about anything. I said that if I was that age and it was that kind of money, I might have slept here last night.
We had a good little time this morning, but we were also serious about talking about… You guys have all seen Willy live and up close for a long time. I have seen him for a long time, but I have worked with him for six months or whatever it is. My message to him: You don’t need to change anything, but there is that old line, “To whom much is given, much is expected.” To me, he can take another step in his leadership.
When you see Willy competing, dug in, and playing a 200-foot game, the rest of the team follows. That was my message to him. We don’t need him to be anything different. He continues to mature as a player. When he is at his best, there are very few better than him in the league.
How much pressure was there on management to get this done before the trade deadline to avoid the risk of walking him to UFA?
Treliving: I don’t know if pressure… There is always pressure to get these things [done]. It is the job, but you keep going through the process. I know it sounds boring, but we wanted to get the player signed. The player wanted to get signed. You just keep working away at it.
You take some steps forward some days. On some days, you take steps back. You stay committed to it, and ultimately, you get something everyone can live with.
With this business done, does some of your heavier lifting come in the next two months ahead of the deadline on March 8?
Treliving: You are always evaluating the team. I am encouraged. I think we have taken some steps lately. I think we have gotten healthier on the blue line. There is one thing getting healthy, and then it takes a little time to get up to speed.
I also think you have to be careful on the trade deadline. We will continue to watch our team, but I am not a big believer that you make your team (at the deadline). You have to be careful with that.
Are there tweaks that you’d like to do? Sure. We have X number of assets that we don’t necessarily want to be throwing out the door. Certainly, we are continuing to watch our team. We are continuing to see if there are ways to help it. We will contniue to do that up to the deadline.
With so many players on double-digit AAVs, what is the challenge of navigating around that?
Treliving: Certainly, there are always challenges, right? All we can do is tackle these things one at a time when they came up. I got here and Auston was a priority. Auston and Willy were both going into their final years. We were able to get those done. Now, you see what is next on the list, right?
You are going to have a cap that increases, but we are also not blind to the fact that there are other areas to our team — as we move forward — that you have to improve. We will continue to do that. I don’t have any bold statements or proclamations to make today other than we got a really good player signed. Now, we move onto the next piece.
With any of the other players whose contracts are expiring on July 1, is there any chance you will get a move on with any of them before the deadline?
Treliving: We will see. You are always looking at it. We have a lot of guys who are pending free agents. There are guys that you certainly would like to look at extending. When you are looking at extending, you have to balance that with where the cap is going to be and what they may want in terms of an extension.
We will continue to monitor those things and see if there is any business, but we have been pretty much focused on this file for the last little bit.
What is the latest on Ilya Samsonov?
Treliving: Ilya has had a good week. We had a plan in place for him until we got back. He had another session today. We are going to huddle here later this afternoon and map out the next piece of that. But his on and off ice work has been good.
We kind of mapped it out through to today, and we will see. I don’t know if I will have an update, but we will have a plan for the next few days by this afternoon. So far, so good.
