{"id":536975,"date":"2026-04-02T17:56:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:56:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/536975\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T17:56:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:56:16","slug":"nylander-committed-to-leafs-barring-rebuild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/536975\/","title":{"rendered":"Nylander committed to Leafs barring rebuild"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto Maple Leafs star William Nylander is committed to the franchise, barring a rebuild.<\/p>\n

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

The Maple Leafs fired general manager Brad Treliving on Monday after nearly three seasons at the helm. Toronto is 14th in the Eastern Conference with a 32-30-13 record and is set to miss the playoffs for the first time since 2016, when Nylander was 19 years old.<\/p>\n

Nylander had a “good conversation” with his now ex-GM Treliving before the March 6 trade deadline and was content with the message he received.<\/p>\n

“Brad said that he doesn’t want to rebuild or anything. He just wants to retool and stuff. That sounded fine for me,” Nylander explained.<\/p>\n

Despite Treliving’s exit, the organization’s sentiment appears unchanged. MLSE CEO Keith Pelley, who will hire Toronto’s next head of hockey operations, doesn’t believe the team needs a complete rebuild.<\/p>\n

“We all know the Toronto Maple Leafs have foundational pieces in place,” Pelley said<\/a> Tuesday. “If we’re able to surround them with the right culture, with the right structure, with the right personnel, both on and off the ice, then I would say we would be in a retool, not a rebuild.”<\/p>\n

Nylander is signed through 2031-32 at an $11.5-million cap hit. Leafs captain Auston Matthews, on the other hand, only has two seasons left on his contract after this campaign concludes. Nylander hasn’t considered how Matthews’ future will impact his own decisions down the road.<\/p>\n

“I mean, I haven’t really thought about it, like that far. Once they just told me (rebuilding is) not what they want to do – try to keep winning here or try to start winning (Stanley Cups),” Nylander said.<\/p>\n

He added, “If that point in time comes, then I’ll think about that then.”<\/p>\n

Nylander called this season “super frustrating and rattling” but said he’s “not too worried” about the Leafs’ future.<\/p>\n

“You just look at Boston this year. They were not in the playoffs last year, and they’re having a pretty good season this year,” Nylander said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs star William Nylander is committed to the franchise, barring a rebuild. “Unless it was a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5106],"tags":[5,20,5172,4,66,31,5171],"class_list":{"0":"post-536975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-maple-leafs","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-maple-leafs","10":"tag-mapleleafs","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-toronto","13":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","14":"tag-torontomapleleafs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116336406393829210","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}