The Toronto Maple Leafs now have around seven weeks to determine what the new direction of the franchise will be and how winning the NHL Draft Lottery and selecting first overall in the 2026 NHL Draft in Buffalo will augment what GM John Chayka and Senior Executive Advisor Mats Sundin will do.
Before even diving deep into who to select with the top overall pick, Chayka and Sundin will have to see if their house is in order, and atop their list of chores is to find out where team captain Auston Matthews is at. There have been a plethora of reports since his season ended, courtesy of Radko Gudas’ knee-on-knee hit that the 28-year-old is beginning to question his future in Toronto and wants to hear what the vision of Chayka and Sundin is to bring the Leafs back to respectability.
It is clear that the mandate from Edward Rogers and MLSE is to retool, not rebuild, and to do that, they need Matthews to stay and bounce back from an injury-plagued season and a career-low 27 goals, which is why Chayka and Sundin were hired. Keeping their team captain in the fold might be the most important task of the new management group, since being forced into rebuild mode and trading Matthews to a destination of his choosing will definitely mean not getting full value for him, and would also mean that the club would be forced to trade William Nylander as well.
Chayka pushed back on the assertion made in the Athletic earlier this week that Matthews is not sure he’ll be back in an interview on TSN 1050’s Overdrive on Wednesday.
“That is not my understanding.” Chayka said, “As he evaluates his career and what the next decade of it looks like, I think it is important that he feels a connectivity, an alignment, and has a similar vision and passion that we do. We’ll have those conversations, get together, and share notes. Honestly, I want to be a good listener. He is the captain. It is his room. He has been through the ups and downs in this market…….
I totally understand the perspective that you only have so many years as a player. It goes by quickly. You want to make sure you feel fully aligned and engaged in what is going on. I have no problem having those conversations, sharing those thoughts, learning, seeing whether there is a shared vision, and charting the path forward.”
If the Leafs have a conversation with Matthews and he does not like the plan or direction they are going, he would have to be open to giving Toronto a list of teams that he would be willing to go to, and not do a Mitch Marner and give them a list of one. More than likely, Chayka and Sundin will ask Matthews to give them a year to sort things out and make trades and roster upgrades, including the first overall pick.
If he buys into the vision, it is almost a no-brainer who would be a perfect fit for Matthews as a sniper at center, and that is a playmaking winger like Gavin McKenna. McKenna possessed nearly all of the offensive traits of Mitch Marner; the Leafs will just have to hope that he does not share the lack of a clutch gene. If he doesn’t, it puts Chayka and Sundin in an unenviable position of starting a rebuild with the most valuable commodity of a team in that position: their own first-round picks.
