Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews Deal a Big, Big Win for Kyle Dubas

The Matthews contract is good for both the player and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have made another excellent move here, and the criticisms of this trade are bordering on hilarious.  How is five years not “long term”?  Why does anyone care about the Salary Cap six years from now? And on and on.

People will complain about anything, but this is a little much.

The Leafs locked up the second best player in the world for a deal that is cheaper, in terms of cap hit percentage than his peers.

So let’s not look the gift horse right in the old peepers.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Auston Matthews

Five years isn’t as good as eight, mostly because the Toronto Maple Leafs will have to pay dearly for what would have been the last three years of his max-length contract, when they re-sign him to an eight year deal five years from now.

Big deal!

The trade off for this negative is that the Leafs get him at a lower cap hit today than they would have on an eight year deal, which increases their odds to win a Stanley Cup over the next five years (because they’ll have more money to spend).

It’s not often a team can make a move that with 100% certainty improves their odds to win, so that can’t be overlooked.

Think of it this way: You get someone who quite literally projects to be one of the best goal scorers of ALL TIME on a cheaper cap hit by percentage than all his peers signed for on longer deals (If the cap is 85 million, as projected, Matthews comes in below Nash. ) The only risk in exchange for this clearly sweet proposition is that you either lose the player in five years or you keep him and pay more.

But this risk is almost non-existent because a) There is almost no chance he leaves after five years and b) any increase in salary the Leafs incur six to eight years from now will be eaten up by the cap increases anyways.

Plus its really dumb to even care about the salary cap six years from now anyways.

Matthews is a Leaf, long term, and he’s on a cheaper deal than he deserves to be. This contract will deliver value in the first year, and insane value by year five.

The only plausible complaint about this deal is if, as reported, its true that the Leafs could have signed him for eight years in the summer but didn’t. But if I know anything, I know that there’s always another side to the story.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have locked up the best player they’ve ever had to a long-term, cap-friendly contract that will all but ensure that the Leafs are one of the best teams in the NHL for the next six years.

Matthews already scores the most goals in the NHL per minute, and is, by Corsica’s WAR model, the second best player, per minute, in the NHL last year.  Also, he’s only getting better.

This is a rock-solid, 100% great, no-doubt positive move.

You could make a reasonable argument that this signing is the best thing to ever happen to the Toronto Maple Leafs since 1967.