Wayne Gretzky emphasizes the need for Auston Matthews and William Nylander to take less in order to win
The Leafs are in a bit of a predicament at the moment, and I think that most everyone in Leafs Nation knows it. On one hand, Brendan Shanahan and Brad Treliving want to keep the core together to "keep knocking on the door", as Treliving said, and hopefully eventually break through and go on a long playoff run. On the other hand, in a hard salary cap world, there's often not enough money to go around. Sometimes, you need your guys to take a little less if winning is the ultimate goal.
The Leafs are finding out now that winning isn't the only thing that matters to a lot of their high-priced players. Credit to Morgan Rielly, he took a sweetheart deal to remain in Toronto for what should be the majority of the remainder of his career, settling for $7.5M x 8 years when most of his comparables were pushing for deals over $8M-$9.5M per season. However, when it comes to Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Auston Matthews, there hasn't really been a desire to take less shown.
With the 3 aforementioned star Leafs, there was no money left on the table at the time of their signings, coming out of their entry-level deals. Nylander famously held out until December 1st, 2018 before finally accepting a deal worth nearly $7M per season, scratching and clawing for every last penny he could get. Marner was also willing to hold out right up until training camp in 2019, finally pulling in $10.9M per season over a 6-year term. Matthews was the only one of the 3 to not hold out, signing his deal mid-season, a few months before he even reached RFA status. His AAV comes in at $11.64M per season.
You'd have a hard time trying to convince me that any one of them - yes, including Matthews - took less to try to win. They all shot for the moon and landed among the stars, even when Marner and Matthews could have easily left $1M or so on the table and Nylander could have left an extra $500K or so on the table as well. That's at least an extra $2.5M that the team could have had to spend to keep an extra player or go out and sign someone more impactful. But, here we are.
On Monday, Wayne Gretzky was a guest on Leafs Morning Take, and The Great One fielded some questions from hosts Nick Alberga and Jay Rosehill. Some of those questions were related to the salary cap and how the Leafs may be up against it with the Auston Matthews and William Nylander contract extensions. Here's what Gretzky had to say on the subject:
In the old days, you just kept everybody, right? And you look at LA, they won two Stanley Cups. They had to rebuild because of the salary cap... Chicago won 3 Cups and basically had to tear down the organization and now they're rebuilding.
I hope that players make as much money as they can. I hope they earn all the money that they make, but let's be honest; Connor [McDavid] is probably signed to a discount now. Auston [Matthews] is probably going to sign for a little bit of a discount, because at the end of the day, after you've played 7 or 8 years, it's no fun being knocked out of the 1st round or 2nd round. Unfortunately for guys like Connor [McDavid] and Auston [Matthews] and Nathan MacKinnon - you've gotta leave some money in the pot because you need some teammates to be able to win a Stanley Cup, right? It comes down to personal choice. Do I take all the money I can and basically maybe get knocked out in the 1st round? Or do I take a little bit less and show the team and show the organization that I want to win a Stanley Cup? - Wayne Gretzky on the idea of Auston Matthews and other star players needing to take less to help the team win
Despite the fact that Gretzky didn't play during the salary cap era, he did work in the NHL for several years as a coach and as an executive when teams did have a salary cap to contend with, so he knows all about the cap and how it can really handcuff a team. The thoughts he offered on the Leafs actually make a lot of sense and hopefully Nylander, Matthews and the rest of the players hear what he's saying and really consider leaving some money on the table to try to win while they're still able to keep the core together.
| POLL | ||
JUILLET 10 | 984 ANSWERS Wayne Gretzky emphasizes the need for Auston Matthews and William Nylander to take less in order to win Do you agree with Gretzky that the Leafs' top players should take less and leave more for the team to spend elsewhere on the roster? | ||
| Absolutely | 915 | 93 % |
| No, these guys have limited earning years | 38 | 3.9 % |
| Don't care, just win | 31 | 3.2 % |
| List of polls | ||
