After eliminating the Toronto Maple Leafs from the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the second time in the past three seasons, Matthew Tkachuk hopped on the most recent episode of the "Spittin Chiclets" podcast to talk about his clubs series win.
While discussing his team's game 7 victory against Toronto, the Panthers superstar explained that "you sometimes feel bad for (the Maple Leafs)".
""Sometimes you feel bad for them, because they have some unbelievable players and a great team. ... If their team was not in Toronto dealing with all the crazy circus stuff outside of it, they'd be an unbelievable team and such a hard team to play. They just have so much to deal with, and I feel bad because we don't have to deal with that in Florida""Matthew Tkachuk
According to Forbes, the Maple Leafs are the league's most valuable team, and they have been for a while now, so as you would expect, they're a big, big deal in town among media and fans. When results don't go as fans would like, they are indeed going to face scrutiny.
The Maple Leafs had a 2-0 series lead against the Panthers in the second round, before allowing Florida to tie the series at two games a piece, and ultimately going on to lose in 7 games.
There's always anger and frustration when the Maple Leafs are eliminated from the playoffs, but with star players Mitch Marner and John Tavares both heading to free agency, this year feels different than years past -- it feels like there's actually going to be change this time. And less than a week after their elimination, the first domino has already fallen, with the team letting go of team president Brendan Shanahan.
Marner has taken up majority of the headlines in Leafs land since the teams game 7 debacle. This was the final season of his six-year, $65M contract, paying him an AAV of $10.9M, and everyone is spectaculating as to what happens next with the star winger. Does this core get one more kick at the can, or was this really their last chance to make it work?
Tkachuk's statement on "Spittin Chiclets" has a lot of truth to it -- the Maple Leafs do deal with a ton of pressure in Toronto that the Panthers certaintly don't deal with down in Florida. But, the stars of this team are very well compensated for any potential media pressure or fan scrutiny they have to deal with.
When Auston Matthews signed his five-year, $53M ticket a couple summers ago, his $13.25M AAV was the highest in NHL history at the time. William Nylander is currently inked to the richest total value contract in franchise history at $92M. Marner's AAV of $10.9M had him as the 7th highest cap hit in the NHL at the time of his signing in 2019. And John Tavares? He's received $11M annually over the past seven years -- $77M in total from the Toronto Maple Leafs to him and his family -- with two series wins over that time to show for it.
Although the Maple Leafs do indeed face a lot of scrutiny from fans, media, and everything in between here in Toronto, none of these star players took any sort of "hometown discount" to stay with the club, meaning they are all compensated more than well enough to deal with the pressure.