Matthews wants out of Toronto if he accepts a shorter deal?!

Toronto Maple Leafs fans have been asking a lot of questions ever since NHL insider Elliotte Friedman reported in his latest 31 Thoughts column on Sportsnet that an eight-year deal was now off the table for star player Auston Matthews. 

“How to interpret Toronto GM Kyle Dubas’s proclamation that the Maple Leafs are having good dialogue with Auston Matthews? My take is this: both team and agent Judd Moldaver see an eight-year deal as extremely unlikely. The salary would be too high for the team, which wants to keep the best possible team around him and knows Mitch Marner’s agent, Darren Ferris, is waiting to see Matthews’s cap number. A four-year contract walks him right to unrestricted free agency, so that’s not happening. We’re looking at a five- or six-year contract. That puts the number under Connor McDavid’s $12.5 million, but exactly where is what’s still to be decided. Dubas’s proclamation that they’d like to know before the deadline means February will be an important month in the process.”

You can imagine though that Dubas and the entire organization are just chomping at the bit to get Matthews under contract. Especially considering what a headache it was to get William Nylander to sign. 

Many insiders believed that Matthews could top McDavid when it comes down to salary, however, the Maple Leafs’ cap situation is one hell of a financial puzzle. Friedman believes that Matthews could set a new record when looking at five-year and six-year deals previously offered to star players in the NHL: 

“The highest five-year contracts in the salary-cap era belong to Sidney Crosby (2008–09 to 2012–13) and Evgeni Malkin (2009–10 to 2013–14), at $8.7 million. The largest six-year deal went to Dany Heatley (2008–09 to 2013–14) at $7.5 million. Assuming Matthews and the Maple Leafs choose either of these lengths, we’re going to have a new record. This term — rather than the max eight — will be the choice for some teams and their restricted free agents.”

On Friday, TSN’s Leafs Lunch host Andi Petrillo wondered what it meant if Matthews ends up agreeing to a shorter term deal in Toronto. While Dubas and the Leafs are trying to make sure the 21-year-old stays in Toronto, the TSN host had a very important message to NHL fans out there. 

“We have a lot of smart hockey fans, not just Maple Leafs fans, in this market, they should understand that a shorter deal doesn’t mean the athlete doesn’t want to be here. Or that they’re looking for a shorter deal so they can get out of here. 

“You just… start to understand the state of the league, which is a salary cap league and you start to realize that in order to keep a bunch of young guys together, that [a shorter deal] makes sense because you take a lower AAV as opposed to a higher one. 

“That was almost the belief: ‘sign the eight-year deal cause that means you’re committed, it was maxed out and you want to be here, and if you sign anything less maybe that means you don’t want to be here or the team didn’t have faith in you!” No. There have too many variables to just make it black or white like that.”

Petrillo is right: the Leafs and Matthews’ camp have to think about so much right now. Let’s not read more into it. The Maple Leafs need to focus on what matters most: keeping Matthews in Toronto. Period.