Yes, I was old enough to remember Sundin when he was first traded to the Leafs, and the memory is fresh when they let him walk to UFA. If anything, stupidity was NOT trading him in 2005-2006, and letting Sundin rot for 3 years while consistently missing the playoffs and getting no assets in return when he left in 2008 for Vancouver.
A 27 year old Matthews is someone you keep if you think you can retool and win with him over the next 3 seasons. And by win, I mean contend for the Stanley Cup. That means you have to believe that
- short term: signing guys like Marchand and Duchene/Giroux to 1-2 year deals while landing someone like Provorov or Ekblad will offset losing Marner and Tavares and give you a better chance to contend in 2025-2027
- long term: there is a real potential to sign McDavid or Kaprizov in 2026, or at worst Eichel as a consolation prize.
- organic growth: in both the short-term and long-term, the likes of Cowan and Danford will become cheap Top 9 and middle 6 entry-level contributors while continuing to harvest strong organic growth from Knies, Robertson (if he's still here), and Woll.
That's a lot of ifs...which is why I don't think it's at all "stupidity" to consider all options on the table, especially if he has some health issue that will precipitate decline over the next couple of seasons and/or has a serious psychological performance anxiety in the playoffs.
This is especially so if big US teams are offering packages to snag a marketable star. A few off the top of my head that would make me think:
- LA: Byfield (as another poster suggested), Kempe, picks
- DET: Seider/Raymond, picks
- SEA: Beniers/Kakko, picks
- CBJ: Fantilli/Marchenko, picks
- UTA: Keller/Guenther/Cooley, picks
- STL: two of Thomas/Kyrou/Holloway, picks
- BUF: a whole slew of young forwards and defencemen. pick two or three
As long as Matthews doesn't have any debilitating health issue, these non-playoff or bubble teams could entertain getting a US-born superstar. Not every team would be willing to offer the above, but at least one or two would likely offer some sort of permutation and Matthews would have to agree to it (e.g. LA, UTA, DET probable). I think looking at what Eichel fetched X 15-20% would be a decent benchmark.
The key would be to get two top-end young players with some draft capital to replenish the stock. That frees up around $30M and $50M in capspace over the next two seasons to re-sign these young players to more structurally efficient deals and resets your compete window by 4-6 years. Allows for playoff continuity while continuing to build a contender via drafts, trades, and free agency with
substantially more cap flexibility.
