The Toronto Maple Leafs will have a lot of decisions to make this off-season, but debatably the biggest decision is regarding the future of their #1 centre, Auston Matthews.
At Matthews end of season interview, he did state that he wants to stay with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but people have said the same and still ended up playing on a different team before.
Brad Treliving has lived this before with the Calgary Flames, losing Johnny Gaudreau, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to let that happen.
Treliving got to work this week by taking a trip down to Arizona to visit with Matthews and talk more about the future of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
While I doubt there were major contract discussions in that meeting, now the door for negotiation has been opened. In the latest episode of the 32 Thoughts Podcast, Elliotte Friedman touches on the Matthews negotiation and states he is more sure than ever that Matthews will be signing a new contract with Toronto.
REPORT: Toronto Maple Leafs Pushing for an 8 Years With Auston Matthews
Friedman mentions that he thinks the Leafs are pushing for a max-term deal with Matthews. While all of the parties are keeping the negotiation rather quiet, this is quite different from the reports that made it seem like a 3-5 year contract was essentially a lock.
While he can’t sign until at least July 1st, signing Matthews to a max-term deal would be quite the achievement for Treliving and the Toronto Maple Leafs staff.
The next thing Friedman touches on is the timing of it all. Friedman reports that both sides have acknowledged that Matthews truly does want to stay, so that should help with the negotiations and specifically the timing of it all. It’s hard to plan around the future when there’s a limited idea of what the cap structure will look like, with potentially two decently large contracts needing to be signed in Matthews and Nylander.
Both Matthews and Treliving know that getting a deal done sooner rather than later benefits the Leafs, so while it may not be a July 1st signing, I don’t expect it to be late into the offseason. Locking up Matthews will help Treliving to be able to focus on other areas of the roster with a more accurate cap picture in his mind.
Signing Matthews to a new contract should be the highest priority this off-season and based on reports trickling out it seems as if the reality of Matthews having a new contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs has shifted from a “will he sign” to a “when will he sign”.