Maple Leafs looking for financial flexibility from young players

TORONTO-- Brendan Shanahan said he feels the Toronto Maple Leafs' core of young players might have to make financial sacrifices if they want to win a Stanley Cup together.

"It's not for everyone," the Toronto president said Wednesday, referring to the pitch the Maple Leafs are making to those players. "But for the ones that will play here, that is what they want or that's what we want from them, and I think that's what they want from each other. And at the end of the day, I think that's what you look back on and remember the most is how they interact with their teammates and whether they were able to be a part of something like this."
Shanahan was not specifically referring to William Nylander, the 22-year-old restricted free agent forward who is unsigned and did not play in the season opener Wednesday against the Montreal Canadiens. Forwards Auston Matthews, 21, and Mitch Marner, 21, each can become a restricted free agent July 1, 2019.

Toronto this offseason signed free agent forward John Tavares, 28, to a seven-year contract worth $11 million annually, and let forwards James van Riemsdyk, 29, and Tyler Bozak, 32, leave as free agents. Nylander reportedly is seeking about $8 million per season.
Shanahan used his days as a forward for the Detroit Red Wings as an example of how players would take less money in order to have financial space to add talent to the roster, prior to the NHL salary cap. Such was the case for the 2001-02 Stanley Cup champion Red Wings, who brought in forwards Brett Hull and Luc Robitaille at the beginning of the season.
With Hull, Robitaille and forward Steve Yzerman, the Red Wings became the first NHL team to have three 500-goal scorers at the same time. Shanahan became the fourth during the season.
"The (2002) Detroit team had some guys at the end of their careers who came to Detroit because they thought they could win a Cup with the nucleus we already had there," Scotty Bowman, the Red Wings coach at the time, said in 2015. "There were some hometown discounts."
Shanahan won the Stanley Cup three times with the Red Wings from 1996-2002. The NHL instituted a salary cap of $39 million prior to the 2005-06 season, and this season its upper limit is $79.5 million.
"At the end of the day, we all found a way to (financially) fit with each other so that we could keep adding to the group," he said. "And that's obviously what we are asking some of young leaders to do. There's a lot of other voices and understandably so. And like I said, it's not for everyone and we're not for everyone. But we think that the players that we currently have, while it's not going to be easy, we have great confidence that they have bought into being a part of this program and being a part of the Toronto Maple Leafs and representing Toronto in a way that they understand what's going to be most important.

"What I hope they can look back on 20 years, 30 years down the road, what's going to be most important to them is whether or not they maxed out as an individual and as a team and have championships to look back on and remember forever."
Shanahan said the Maple Leafs continue to negotiate with Nylander, who was the No. 8 pick in the 2014 NHL Draft and is coming off his entry-level contract.
"We're working hard toward (signing) William, we drafted William, we're big fans of William, we want William to be a part of this, but obviously this is a process that he needs to go through," Shanahan said.