So the Toronto Maple Leafs got pasted by the Boston Bruins last night to the tune of 5-1, but that isn’t what had me the most interested (the Leafs are on the second night of a back to back, on the road, without Matthews, Andersen, or Nylander... meh).

What really caught my attention came during Sportsnet’s intermission segment, “Headlines”, where Elliotte Friedman and Nick Kypreos dropped a couple of bombs that go against some of the popular narrative surrounding the Nylander contract talks.

You see, until now what we’ve all heard is how William Nylander was reportedly asking for $8M+ AAV for a long term deal, and was almost paranoid about being traded. Whispers about Nylander’s lack of character, of not being a good teammate, of being greedy began to emerge. Nylander was the one to blame for the lack of an extension as the regular season games passed by. Or maybe it was his agent, or his father, that were being completely stubborn and selfish and unreasonable — but the point was that whomever was wearing the pants in the Nylander camp were the problems.

And thus, the William GREEDLANDER meme was born.

Why, WHY couldn’t Nylander just be a good little boy and sign for the same contracts that Pastrnak and Ehlers got not too long ago? That’s what we all hoped he’d sign for during the off-season, right? The same deals without taking inflation into account? That was the reasonable middle ground between Nylander’s ask and the Leafs’ offer, right?

Talk of the Leafs HAVING to trade Nylander began, because we don’t want no greedy Swede  ruining our salary cap. But through it all Kyle Dubas has been adamant, both on the record and in insider reporting, that he will not even entertaining the idea of trading Nylander (probably for a defenseman)

And then the Saturday Headlines segment came.

Well.... shit. With the complete lack of any news or progress on the contract talks, this must mean the Leafs are starting to think that GREEDlander just won’t budge from his outrageous ask for a $8M+ AAV contract. Turns out I was wrong all alo-

Wait... the Leafs haven’t even OFFERED the Pastrnak deal? They haven’t even TRIED to get him to sign to $6.66M AAV at any point in the negotiations? Not once? You just gave Tavares $11 million AAV to barely offer Nylander even HALF that much? Really?

Listen to me, we’ve traced the call greed, it’s coming from inside the house Leafs’ front office! More like Kyle AVARAS amirite?

Oh, wait, one sec... “they (Friedman and Kypreos) don’t believe the Leafs offered...”.

Ah fuck, sorry guys. I didn’t catch them passing their own speculation off as actual fact or insider knowledge again. Back on the GREEDLANDER bandwagon!

ONTO THE LINKS!

If you want a full transcript of that same segment rather than the intentionally clipped tweets/quotes I used above, you can find it at MLHS.

Ian Tulloch at The Athletic had an interesting breakdown of the Leafs’ use of the stretch pass, including its advantages and disadvantages. Worth reading for people who have started assuming stretch passes are all that the Leafs’ “system” does and also that they never work and are bad and you should feel bad, Babcock.

The NHL had a little get together of the new HHOF members, including this great.

At least the Leafs were not the only Atlantic team to have a bad night, as the Tampa Bay Lightning blew a 4-2 lead to the Ottawa Senators 6-4. It was a comeback of uber proportions, and speaking of...

Have a great Sunday!

Note: If you’re looking for the European Report today, you should go back to bed. Look for it to be up on Monday after the Four Nations U20 tournament is over.

From The Branches