William Nylander gets brutally honest on future with Maple Leafs

The Toronto Maple Leafs have had a disaster of a season. As they are expected to miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Maple Leafs have fired GM Brad Treliving, and there is uncertainty around the future of coach Craig Berube.

Now, one of the stars of the team is talking about his future, as William Nylander has made his desires clear, according to Jonas Siegel and Chris Johnston of The Athletic.

“Unless it was a full rebuild and we were going to get rid of everybody, then it’s a different story. Then you take that conversation then,” Nylander told The Athletic following practice on Wednesday. “But just to do a retool or whatever, I don’t even know, but I mean, I still want to be here, yeah.”

Nylander wants to stay with the team, unless there is a plan to do a full rebuild. That was not the plan when Treliving was the GM, and the plan was just to do a retool.

“Brad said that he doesn’t want to rebuild or anything. He just wants to retool and stuff,” Nylander said back at the trade deadline. “That sounded fine for me.”

President and CEO Keith Pelley called Nylander one of the foundational pieces to the franchise.

“We have generational pieces in 34 and in 88 and in 23 and in 91,” said Pelley, referring to captain Auston Matthews, Nylander, Matthew Knies, and John Tavares. “We have strong goaltending. There’s a lot of positives. We now just have to surround those individuals with better pieces and that will be a decision and the task of the new head of hockey operations.”

In the past, there have been conversations around the future of Matthews and if he could be moved in the offseason. If the Leafs do decide to move Matthews, it could play into Nylander's future as well, but the Leafs' star would not commit to a decision yet. He still has six years remaining on his contract, with a no-movement clause and an AAV of $11.5 million.

While Nylander is making his plans for the future known, the team still needs to finish out the season. The Maple Leafs are 32-30-13 on the year, which places them in seventh in the Atlantic Division. They take the ice again on Thursday night against the San Jose Sharks.