I’ll start with what you likely already know. So very much of what the Leafs do over the next few seasons will depend on their captain, Auston Matthews and what he wants to do moving forward.
John Chayka and Mats Sundin hit the ground running this offseason. They added a flurry of depth forwards, one of the best goalies of his era and one of the best defenders on the open market this summer, which means there has been a lot of change to the roster. That, along with the hiring of Jim Hiller to replace Craig Berube and the addition of Gavin McKenna, will give the team a completely different look and feel this fall.
The question is, will it be enough to launch them back into contention?
On paper, they certainly look improved. They added a bona-fide starting goaltender that had one bad season in Sergei Bobrovsky and a 70pt defender, which placed him 7th in the NHL in scoring among blueliners, in Darren Raddysh. Yes, Bobrovsky is 37 years old and Raddysh nearly doubled his previous high in production this season, which means the additions come with significant risk, especially considering the fact that they will eat up $15.5M in capspace for the next 3 seasons combined, while Raddysh will continue to earn $8.5M for 5 years after that. If both players regress, then these big swings will prove to be detrimental to the teams ability to contend.
Unfortunately, that can be said about some other players that were obtained as well.
Nick Paul cost the Leafs a solid goaltending prospect and a couple of mid round draft picks. While I don’t believe that Dennis Hildeby will be a future all-star caliber goaltender, I do think he could have been a solid backup and/or a 1B at the NHL level. However, there’s a lot of upside with goalies that stand at 6’7″, as he does, which means if he does turn into a true #1G in the NHL I won’t be surprised either. Paul produced just 15pts in 51 games last season, so the team will need a bounce back year from him, or else they’ll be carrying a 4th line player for 3rd line money, which is what they’re already doing with Dakota Joshua. Carrying one player on your roster that doesn’t produce according to his pay isn’t the end of the world, but if you’re carrying 2 or more, things can start to slide downhill.
This is why they’ll also want a bounce back season from Colton Sissons, who they signed to a 2 year deal with a $4.25M AAV. With just 11pts in 66 games last season as a member of the Vegas Golden Knights, Sissons was relegated to the 4th line and saw his production drop because of it. He has been a 30pt player historically, who also plays a solid defensive game and can grind with the best of them. However, if he can’t start producing offense again, that caphit will look awfully large for a defensive specialist.
In short, there is the possibility that the team could be overpaying Sergei Bobrovsky, Darren Raddysh, Nick Paul and Colton Sissons, while they also inherited the too-big-for-what-he-does contract that is attached to Dakota Joshua.
I still haven’t mentioned the fact that Chris Tanev missed a lot of games last season and while he is expected to be healthy to start the year, you have to wonder if that much time off can hurt a players game, especially at 36 years of age. Max Domi is also questionable to play at all, as the team’s moves appear to work only if he is on LTIR at the start of the season. If Domi is healthy and playing then what does his game look like after a summer without training? Where does he fit in the lineup? How does the cap work without him on LTIR? These are fantastic questions that will quickly be answered come October.
If everything goes according to plan then the season should go very well. The team has a host of fantastic options to play on the penalty kill, which will free up Matthews and Knies to concentrate on offense and the powerplay. The goaltending will be solid, the offense should be deeper and the bottom 6 more gritty, while the defense should be more mobile and dangerous offensively. Even Morgan Rielly, who may yet be traded before the season starts, could thrive on a team where he isn’t the top option on the powerplay and can be sheltered as much as possible defensively.
On paper, things look great. If most of the players acquired can live up to their contracts, then Auston Matthews should be happy to re-sign with a club that can be among the best in the Eastern Conference.
The question is, what if things don’t go well and Matthews doesn’t see a future in Toronto? American captains of Canadian teams are asking for trades these days, could Matthews be the next to do so? Here’s the part that I like about the changes that John Chayka has made… they’re all short term and (mostly) coincide with the end of Matthews’ contract.
If the Leafs are far out of the playoffs by this years trade deadline, you know that trade rumours about Matthews’ future are going to spiral out of control and for good reason. He was rumoured to have questions about the teams direction this past spring and will most likely look to find a different team to play for if it repeats. From there you have to believe that the team will set their sights on building around the younger players on the team, with Gavin McKenna being the major piece to a new core, while Matthew Knies and Easton Cowan could be secondary, complementary pieces. If this is the way things go, then the team has set themselves up for a quick retool because of the short term on the deals they signed. All of Colton Sissons, Jack Roslovic, Teddy Blueger and Oliver Ekman-Larsson will be UFAs at the same time Matthews is, which means they could follow him out the door at the same time in an attempt to quickly restock as many picks and prospects as possible. The year after that John Tavares, Nick Paul, Brandon Duhaime and Sergie Bobrovsky can follow suit.
The team has set themselves up for a quick turnover/re-tool, with lots of tradable pieces if things go south and Matthews decides to skip town.
On the other side of things, because I’d like to end this on an upbeat note, is that they have also left themselves with a mountain of capspace to re-sign the star centre if things go well and they’ll need every penny of it.
Leo Carlsson and Kirill Kaprizov have ushered in a new baseline for star players around the league. Carlsson’s newly signed $18M AAV deal, as well as Kaprizov’s $17M AAV will be surpassed soon enough and Matthews will be one of the players that goes above those numbers. Next summer will see a UFA group that is headlined by the likes of Nikita Kucherov, Jason Robertson, Cale Makar, Alex Debrincat and Quinn Hughes, which begs the question; who will one of them be the first NHL player in history to make an average of $20M per season? If none of those players ask for and are granted that much per season, then the following year, when Auston Matthews, Connor McDavid and Zach Werenski are due to sign new deals, we’ll most certainly see the $20M plateau attained.
While that appears to be extremely high, it’s worth pointing out that the current projection’s for the 2028-29 season has the upper limit at around $120M, while some are reporting that number to be on the conservative side.
All of these points simply prove one thing. The team aimed to improve the bottom 6 group this season, while also wanting to add a starting goaltender that has a proven, healthy track record and add more mobility and offense to the blueline. They accomplished all of these things, but they did it while simultaneously positioning themselves in a way that allows them to enter into a full rebuild two years from now, or to re-sign and/or add massive stars from free agency in the summer of 2028 if things go well.
In other words, they have pushed their chips in on the current group, without damaging their ability to build a new core around Gavin McKenna in a couple of years, if need be.
I see the start of the John Chayka era as a smart, strategic one, that leaves the team open to different avenues as things unfold. Let’s hope they go very well, because entering another rebuild would be a tough route to watch right now.