Sportsnet: Elliotte Friedman on the Jeff Marek Show on William Nylander‘s contract extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs and if it’s comparable to David Pastrnak and if it’s one for Mikko Rantanen.
** NHLRumors.com transcription
Marek: “You know, I want to get to sort of, you know, how Nylander fits into the mix both on and off the ice with the Maple Leafs. But you said something interesting there that I want to pick up on. You know, after Austin Matthews signed his contract and where that was at. Now, that was a shorter-term deal, mind you, but there’s always when the top dog on your team signs a new deal, a cascading effect.
You know, interesting you know, how much you thought you figure that that factored into the Nylander discussions and I’m always interested, I think we all are, in comparables. Like on the podcast, like okay, what does this mean for Mikko Rantanen in Colorado?
But getting back to Nylander himself. It does look really close to the David Pasternak deal with the Boston Bruins. Was that a factor in any of this you think?
Friedman: “I’m sure it was. You know, I talk about this a lot in the sense that I think sometimes we’re guilty on the outside of, well, here’s David Pastrnak and this is what he’s done. And this is William Nylander and this is what he’s done. So shouldn’t make more than David Pastrnak.
It doesn’t work like that in the real world. And I talked about the book The Bald Truth by David Falk, a former NBA player agent. He represented Michael Jordan, and that was a great book I read that talked about how agents think and I think by extension teams think.
And you know a team can say well, Pastrnak’s at $11.25 (million), Nylander shouldn’t make more than that. And then good agent will say, well that’s their situation, that’s not this situation. It’s the same thing, like I’m sure there were agents who took a look at it, take a look at contracts like the one Leafs signed the last time around, Matthews, Marner and it brought them to teams and this is what Marner makes and this is what Matthews makes. At the time, their guys more accomplished and the teams say, we don’t care what Toronto does. we’re not doing that.
Comparables only work until they don’t. Until people say we’re not, we’re not taking that comparable into consideration. We’re not doing what that team did or a player says, well, that’s that team situation and that player situation. That’s not this one.
You negotiate for what you can get, and, you know, I like, you know, I think this was a grind of a negotiation. I think it was really intense. Not easy. And I think the Maple Leafs knew at a certain point that as they were going to keep William Nylander, it was going to be this number and, or it was gonna be this number. And they had to make a decision because they weren’t budging. Their poker game was they weren’t budging and I think that’s why we got here.”