Quoting: aadoyle
Nah, we keep matthews till the final year of his contract, if he isnt signed before the deadline goodbye. Get value out of him before he leaves.
I mean, you could do that if you want, but the return will be a lot less. If you trade Matthews now or next year you could get a very good return. If you wait until the last year, and the narrative that Matthews wants to go to ARZ is true, then teams know they are trading for a rental. See Vanek who got traded for a 2nd round pick at the deadline because everyone knew he was going to Minnesota. ARZ won't do a sign and trade when they could just wait for him in free agency and get him for nothing. I think IF Matthews is leaving TOR should get ahead of it.
This Eichel trade wouldn't be available to TOR when Matthews has one year left.
Quoting: JaredOfLondon
so the leafs get a worse player for 4 years to save 3.2 million dollars over 2 years 5 and 6 years from now?
thats hilarious
I can't speak to your opinion of Eichel, but there is a strong case for Eichel to win the Hart this year, he is a very good player. Now when you compare contracts Eichel has more value. He makes $1.6M less per year and is locked up two years longer than Matthews.
I'll admit the salary retention of Matthews in this deal isn't realistic, as I said in the description it was hard to get the cap to work for ARZ. My thought process is it's not ARZ fault TOR gave Matthews a crap contract. Like honestly Buffalo got more UFA years of Eichel and he costs less than Matthews. That's backwards for two players who are essentially equal, as
@KakkoForMauriceRichardAward has debated.