Even as the noise has started to die down around the controversies that erupted from the dirty hit that ended Auston Matthews’ season, it’s pretty telling that the Toronto Maple Leafs are still discussing it among themselves.
“It’s something we’ve talked about almost daily,” coach Craig Berube said this week.
The reverberations could wind up being felt within the organization for weeks or months yet.
Maybe even longer.
Berube’s immediate focus has been on getting his players to come together and step up their physical play after none of them came to Matthews’ defense when Anaheim Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas took him out at the left knee last Thursday. Berube calls it “getting in there for each other.”
While that can’t have been a very pleasant topic for players to rehash — not after they’ve been roundly questioned and criticized by fans, media members and even some of their own peers for an emotion-free reaction to Gudas-Matthews — it has at least left a more unsavory discussion point unspoken: the possibility that embarrassing display might amount to the final act in Toronto for arguably the greatest Maple Leaf ever.
A major conversation was looming between Leafs management and Matthews this offseason even before he limped off the ice at Scotiabank Arena with a Grade 3 MCL tear and quad contusion. The team is veering toward the biggest year-over-year points decline in franchise history and any suggestion it might immediately return to contender status seems flimsy at best. A gut check with a franchise icon two years before he’s eligible to hit unrestricted free agency was always a must under the circumstances.
However, there was at least the chance to establish a whiff of positivity ahead of what could be a franchise-altering chat while Matthews was still healthy and playing. There was an opportunity to shift the vibes in a more favorable direction after he returned from Milan as an Olympic champion.
Instead, the Leafs sank further in the standings and left GM Brad Treliving with no choice but to sell at the trade deadline, and now the entire operation finds itself under intense scrutiny while Matthews rehabs an injury that would have cost him playoff games had the team qualified for a 10th straight year.
Not exactly the kind of backdrop you’d willingly choose while navigating the future of a cornerstone player.
The most intriguing part of the entire situation is that no one involved can say with any certainty which way it’s going to go.
Not Treliving. Not CEO Keith Pelley. Not chair of the board Edward Rogers.
Not even Matthews, who will need to get a clearer sense of the organization’s direction before any commitments are made. He’ll turn 29 in September and is still chasing a Stanley Cup to go with the Olympic gold medal. Maintaining his ability to compete for championships is vital.
Will that option be available to him in Toronto? Will Treliving and/or Berube be shown the door following this calamitous season and if so, who will replace them? Are there any bold personnel moves out there that can shift the Leafs’ competitive window? Might the team luck into a draft lottery win like that one that brought them Matthews in 2016?
Those questions, and more, will start to be answered after the regular season comes to a close on April 15.
It might not be until June before a clearer picture emerges on how Matthews wants to proceed after debriefing on the season and getting a gauge on where things are headed next.
Even coming off two frustrating seasons where he battled injuries and failed to score at previous intergalactic rates, it’s impossible to concoct a scenario where the Leafs would be better off without him. The no-movement clause in Matthews’ contract would severely limit Toronto’s ability to get anything close to fair value on the trade market, and generally speaking, NHL teams that unload superstar talent don’t tend to come out on the happy side of those deals anyway.
Plus, the idea of willingly punting on next season doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when the Leafs have already traded away their 2027 first-round pick (and potentially their 2028 first-rounder as well, pending trade conditions).
Their actions already suggest they’re pot committed on a retool, rather than a full-scale rebuild. And they’re under immense pressure to course-correct quickly.
Poor roster management and a depleted prospect pool produced a sudden unraveling in Toronto, where just last May you had Pelley telling reporters, “I think we have to be on the pathway to winning the Stanley Cup. I think the city has told us that.”
In October, he followed that up by telling The Athletic it was “go time.”
Had the Leafs actually delivered on that objective and retained contender status, there’d be no question about whether the captain would remain along for the ride. Matthews has twice signed extensions with Toronto long before ever getting to market and he’s scored a franchise-best 428 goals in 689 career games for the organization.
He’s grown up here and become a league MVP here. He’d love to have a successful future here, too.
However, the massive wave of hope that accompanied Matthews’ arrival in the city a decade ago felt like nothing more than a distant memory during the mid-week game against the Ducks where his left knee took the brunt of that collision with Gudas while teammates looked on.
In the aftermath, you can’t blame the players for not wanting to look too far down the Matthews rabbit hole while he finishes out the season on injured reserve.
At this point, there really isn’t much any of them can do to change what happens next.
