Babcock Drops Hint On What Will Happen With William Nylander - Here's How It Works

In an interview Thursday, Babcock was asked about his teams performance so far this season. In his response, he is clearly referring to holdout RFA William Nylander & injured Auston Matthews.

"Obviously (I'm) ecstatic, Any way you look at it, we've (gotten) off to a good start. We think our team's going to get better. We have significant pieces not here and they will be here."

Internet trolls and Leaf haters alike will undoubtedly say we are reading too much into this. Babcock however, only has 2 players missing currently, he obviously is referring to William Nylander as one of the pleural when he uses the words "pieces" & "they".

To further drive home my point on Babcock being a great source of leaked news, earlier this year while the team was still in trading camp, Babcock mentioned that next season, training camp would be held in Newfoundland. At that point, there was no announcement, no official release, or even a mention that this was a possibility. Sure enough, days later, the Leafs & Newfoundland Growlers announced training camp and a preseason game in, you guessed it, Newfoundland.

Babcock is not your average NHL coach. His role with this team goes far deeper into the front office then he is willing to admit. Babcock is about as reliable a source as anything else you have read on the internet since September regarding Nylander.

Just yesterday, I was speaking to gentlemen with "sources" within an NHL franchise. I always take that with a grain of salt, however, he did ensure me that the Leafs were going to sign Nylander but at a time when the Leafs gain the best salary cap relief thanks to the players hold out. This is beneficial for the team as the players dollar value contract can be slightly more than the actual cap hit (AAV) and the Leafs don't care about the dollars, they only care about the cap hit.

If you are curious, here is how it works. For example, a 7 mil x 7 year deal signed in September is not the same as 7 mil x 7 years signed on Dec 1st. If you sign him to the same 7x7 contract Dec 1st, his AAV is lower, but only because he gets less money. His 2018-19 salary is being prorated, so if he signs the identical deal in December vs September, he gets a smaller portion of his salary for this year. This savings is then spread over the length of the deal, therein lowering said cap hit. 

What would stand as a 7mil x 7 year contract would likely only be a cap hit of 6.7 - 6.8 million. While this may seem like peanuts on a 75 million dollar salary cap, with the amount of contracts the Leafs have coming up, $200,000 plus is actually very significant.

I haven't reported on speculation during this debacle only because everything out there has been purely speculation from people outside of the organization. Speculating on trades and trade rumours is one thing, but the internet hockey world has been completely ridiculous about all of this from the get go. I made a conscience decision not to add fuel to that fire.

This however is different, this is news from a coach of a team with his thumb on the pulse of the front office.

In any case, I cannot wait for this to be over December 1st.

Go Leafs Go!