Recently, Elliotte Friedman on his 32 Thoughts podcast discussed the Leafs talking to Auston Matthews via Zoom. This led to a rather outlandish response from the TSN show Overdrive.

TSN now stands for Toronto Should Not ... do whatever it is they just did. The Leafs share some responsibility for this situation, but TSN is choosing their own editorial... hmmm... slant, I think I'll call it, so it's mostly on them. Yes, the Leafs did flex a little after the response to the hiring of John Chayka and Sportsnet did produce some soft as bunny fur interviews with the new GM, but the sad thing is, I think that flex was aimed at the Athletic (I'm not capitalizing the, that's too precious) but TSN got mad online about it.

Anyhow, while the chatter on this incredibly important topic of "should they have had a Zoom call" went on. And while analysis, like that above, that allows as how May and June for a team with the first overall pick and a lot of player acquisition decisions to make is kinda busy, still says they shoulda, coulda just gone to Phoenix (you can name your suburbs, that doesn't make them not part of Phoenix) and stared Auston Matthews down and got his pledge of fealty. If they had, it would have been Toronto Should Not have gone there, they should have made him come pay obeisance to the throne on Bay Street.

All of that is smoke machines and laser light shows. Clear the smoke away, and I've discovered something odd. You're all much more optimistic about this situation than I am. When does that happen?

Back to Friedman:

The meeting was "positive," per Friedman:

"I checked with as many people as I could, and I was told that, right now, things are in a good place. There's still more decisions that have to be made here, but for the first lengthy meeting they had, I was told there was nothing that raised any alarms or raised any concerns, and right now things are in a good place between Matthews and the organization," Friedman said.
"He has indicated that he wants to win in Toronto and I believe that is the message that he has reiterated and that is what the organization is going with," Friedman said.
"It's not like they're asking for Matthews' approval or anything like that, or he's making the decisions or anything like that, but I think it was the first time they could really have a conversation about what they're thinking and what their plan is and what their vision is and how they're going to do it," Friedman said.

I think this got distilled down, and as happens, the purification removed all the nuance. I listened to this, and it sounded cautious. Not cautiously optimistic, just cautious in that it recognizes the scope of the unknowns here. Not by Friedman himself so much as by Matthews, by the Leafs, by everyone.

Look, they don't even have a coach, and the bulk of the missing bodies are at forward. Matthews is familiar with the game of hockey and how it's played, and he knows what this team needs. And no, for the sake of just using your cerebral cortex for more than a hatstand, that does not mean he wants Mitch back, and he misses him, an oh woe, he just needs a duplicate and all will be well. It's a titch more complex than that.

The empty roster, the large amount of cap space and a new set of ideas opens up opportunities, but not every risk will pay out, and not every choice will be the right one. There is a very large opportunity to fail here as well as succeed. I think the guy that has shot the puck over 4,000 times without getting a goal out of it understands this process, both in the sense that you have to keep shooting and that you're likely going to miss.

The Leafs Need to Keep Shooting

There is one reason to sell off players and lose on purpose. One only. It's to get picks in the top five. The sell off and accumulation of assets means nothing. You might get a prospect, you might get first-round picks that will get you players outside of the elite category, and if you get enough of them you get a very small chance that you get someone meaningful, but that chance is so small, it can't ever be the driving force of the decision to "rip it all down". It's the sideshow.

The value of these imaginary assets from a big selloff is magnified in everyone's mind because they exist as potential only. What can you get with that first-round pick the Leafs got for Nic Roy? Do you think the Avs will be bad next year, just not top-10 bad because it's a protected pick, or is the likely value of that pick no different from a second-rounder and just something to use to trade for a guy who plays 3C. Which the Leafs don't have because they traded Nic Roy. I said it before the deadline, and I'm saying it now, a sell-off was as useful as selling the living room furniture to get enough money to buy a new TV that everyone can watch while sitting on the floor. It did not generate new wealth in the "trade capital" sense.

Draft and develop is the thing you do with multiple top five and top 10 picks, not a mystical process that turns any group of prospects into future impact players. Look, I like Fraser Minten a huge amount, but I'm not kidding myself that he's some great lost star player who will win the Conn Smythe.

The Leafs don't have their picks for two years. There is no point to a rebuild and anyone advocating for some grand conspiracy where the stars align to convince John Chayka to give up and start selling, well, I am going to suspect that's emotionally motivated.

So what of Matthews? What if he doesn't want to keep shooting if he thinks there's no chance of ever scoring. When the Leafs have their next first-rounder and his contract has expired, he might well be expecting them to just call it a nice try and then actually do the hard rebuild when it can bear fruit. This is not an unreasonable view and is a fairly likely outcome given the facts we have before us now. The same facts he has, or his agent if he contracts out his cognition.

But the New Guy!

Yeah, so about that. Have you watched Team Canada at Worlds? Porter Martone plays 10 minutes a game and he has a goal and four assists in the preliminary round. He's doing well, but that's not an impact player who gets to play with Crosby. Martone is one of three players drafted last summer who played meaningful games in the NHL. His were all in the playoffs, but the other two were in the regular season.

Ben Kindel was drafted 11th overall by the Penguins, and surprisingly played 77 regular season games. By Evolving Hockey's GAR model, he's the 16th most valuable skater on the team. His Goals Above Replacement was 2.5. I'm sure they love him, and he PKs well and has some gently positive offensive value, but he could have been in the AHL this season and their game outcomes would be unchanged.

Matthew Schaefer is, of course, the other drafted player who played a full season. He was the unanimous Calder Trophy winner and his GAR? It was 14.4 and second on his team. That tantalizing idea, that a player you draft high can come in and be a big impact player out of the gate colours this conversation so deeply that it's hard to get out from under the fantasy that tanking (or accidentally getting the first overall) will by default give you that. Auston Matthews was a mere 11.5 in his first season, well down the list of valuable players.

The new guy, whoever he is, cannot be counted on to exceed Matthews' own first season of play. And Auston Matthews is going to know that.

In a month, the new guy will have a name, the team might have a coach, and the Leafs will have made some other moves as they approach free agency, where there is very little to get excited about. They are constrained by the possible, no matter how smart they are at acting within it. So whatever Matthews says now might not be how he feels in a month or come September. Or as next season progresses.

All this positivity "right now" can dry up and blow away come January if the team is terrible.

The Clock Hasn't Stopped Ticking

The difficulty for the Leafs right now in trying to plan beyond the next month is that they know they will not have security that Matthews will even play out his current contract far less sign a new one. They can't have that security this summer, nor this fall, and not at the deadline next spring. This conversation is not going away, and yet, go back again to the beginning. The Leafs have to keep shooting.

They only thing they can do is carry on like the Matthews situation does not exist, that they know they have two years where a rebuild is useless, and their player moves have to reflect that reality. And if that sounds like the lead up to Mitch Marner part two, well it should. This is the crux of the problem. Not what Matthews feels towards the team, the city of Toronto, you personally, the crest on the front of the jersey or who he plays with. It's not about him. It's about how the Leafs can't just coast until he walks away.

Sure, they might get a 3C out of the deal if they do, but maybe that's how we got where we are today, and not wanting to repeat that is why this massive paradigm change has happened in the Leafs front office. Preventing the Nic Roy consolation being all the team ever sees out of their big 2015 tank requires one key ingredient – Auston Matthews.

The Leafs Need Matthews This Season

The Leafs need Matthews to be on board enough that he starts this season with the team, and they need him bought in enough that he plays a hell of a lot less like he did last year. He's just had his knee ripped up, he's not going to fully train this summer, he is coming off two straight years of results that are not elite player level in all ways and are the worst of his career. No one is giving the Leafs a big haul to take a risk on Matthews sight unseen right now.

If Chayka thinks the probability is high that Matthews will not re-sign, and will want to leave, he needs to put him in a position to look enticing to other teams. Even if he thinks the probability is low, he needs to do that.

Handily, that's true of everyone else on the team as well. Selling low when you're mad that guy didn't carry the team is not how a cold-hearted guy with a business degree is supposed to act. He's supposed to make whoever he's trying to trade look good. This would also be my prescription for finding value in Max Domi if the earlier news of his post-surgery issue had not been announced.

The Leafs have to consider Matthews a temporary contract employee with an option to make it permanent if everyone decides it's worth it. No matter what he says now, on Zoom or in person, or while riding a unicycle down Yonge Street dressed as Carlton the Bear, his status is going to stay as "it's complicated". No one is positive about anything.

Offseason