i would have never dreamed of trading matthews until this season. and not because of him, but because he is wasted here. toronto is wasting matthews the way that edmonton is wasting mcdavid. an elite generational talent just pissed away on mediocre teams. what really killed me and pushed me into trade territory was the gudas hit. gudas should have been gang piled by everyone on the ice, including the goalie. fuck that. you don’t target the teams captain and star player and no retaliation? what the actual fuck? matthews must have felt like shit knowing he was targeted by a notorious goon and his teammates just blew it off like it meant nothing. because it did mean nothing to spineless shits like rielly, willy, and carlo. if i was matthews, my mind would have been made up right then. i’d want out. fuck those guys.
trade matthews and set him free. like phil, he’ll win a cup somewhere else. it pains me to say it. i can’t believe i’m saying it but here we are.
i’m on the fence about willy. trade him if the return is right, but i don’t think he brings much in return for trade value versus what he’s worth to the team. the only pure oneway floating sniper winger we have. i don’t expect him to be a center, take faceoffs, kill penalties, or be defensively responsible. his job is just to score goals, which he’s good at. if the return is subpar, we keep him and let him show the new kids how to dress for instagram clout. if he gets you a first rounder, trade him and let him be soft somewhere else.
the problem with full rebuild is we’ve been here before. we drafted matthews and marner and fucked that up royally. so, we do it again? trade everyone for picks, draft new talent and then fuck that up again in 10 years when the new window is supposed to be open and remains closed because we’ve learned nothing and just shuffled the chairs again. it also kills me to say it, but i don’t give a fuck who wins the cup this year. i guess i’ll take mcdavid also, but i’d like to see marner win it just to rub salt in the wound and make the lesson more painful.
As soon as they let Marner walked, the team was done for. Matthews is not the same player with Marner. And the sad part is, even when Matthews was scoring 60-69 goals, he wasn’t scoring them often enough when it mattered in the playoffs. It’s very stupid and annoying that the Leafs gathered elite talent and pissed it away but that all comes down to management. They had a team of executives that made too many bad moves and drafted like absolute shit. Scroll up and I made a list of all the players the Leafs let go and drafted during the Shanahan years and it’s sickening how bad this team was at management.
I think Matthews has opened the door to leaving because the benefits of living in Toronto have dwindled to near zero. It’s not a desirable enough place to live or play anymore. He can make more money, get taxes less, have nicer weather, more privacy and still play competitive hockey on any one of the teams in the West in the USA.
Trading Matthews is about so much more than the shit bag team that refused to stand up for him. It’s just the biggest source of value the Leafs have to get younger in the shortest amount of time. The Leafs don’t have 1st round picks but trading Matthews could bring you the value of three or four 1st round picks immediately. And the same goes for Nylander. He brings the Leafs value in a trade more than he does on the ice. And if you trade Matthews, Nylander is the next one to ask to be traded, followed by everybody else over 25 who wants a chance to win somewhere else.
Yes, the previous rebuild ultimately failed but the Leafs don’t have any other options. They will fail at a retool even worse. At least will a full tear down rebuild, you can hire the proper management, overpay them all with the savings from paying the players way less after you trade them away, and rebuild this team properly; through the draft.