NHL Rumors: Toronto Maple Leafs GM on the rising cap, roster balance and re-signing William Nylander

Sportsnet: Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving on the Kyper and Bourne Show on the salary cap going up, still wanting to re-sign pending free agent forward William Nylander and building their roster.

** NHLRumors.com transcription

Nick Kypreos: “It’s projected that salary cap, speaking of cost, will be up towards $88 million next year is that a good and bad case scenario for you? Good that you got more money or bad that you gotta give it all to Willy?

Treliving: “Well, it’s good news that there’s gonna be growth. I mean, we’ve all, we all know that, you know, all of us you know all the teams have gone through you know, it’s been a, it’s been a you know, it’s been a, it’s been a stagnant cap really for the for lack of a better term. That there really hasn’t been any growth as we’ve gone through the last number of years.

So to have, you know, to be in a position where there’s growth, I think is a positive, is a, is a positive thing for sure. And certainly we have Willy to sign. I mean, that’s, I’ve stated you know, anytime I’ve asked is that, that’s our sole objective, is to try and get, is to try to get him signed. We continue to work with that.

And then apart from that,  we have decisions to make elsewhere. We’ll, we’ll, we continue to balance as we talk about the now, with respect to the defence and the injury with John and the such, with, you know, knowing what’s coming on the books next year and what the cap situation is.

So we’ll continue to work that puzzle. We’re, we’re, we’re will accept, we’ll be happy with any increase. The fact that the caps moving up is a, is a positive thing. Now it’s our job to figure it out how best utilize it.”