The Toronto Maple Leafs are enduring a difficult stretch this season, raising questions about the team’s direction and the future of their captain, Auston Matthews.
Toronto currently sits at the bottom of the Atlantic Division with a 27-26-11 record and has dropped seven straight games. With their playoff hopes all about smoke, speculation has started to swirl around what comes next for both the franchise and its star forward.
Auston Matthews’ Future With the Maple Leafs in the Spotlight
Despite Toronto’s struggles, Matthews recently enjoyed success on the international stage. He helped lead the United States men’s national ice hockey team to a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.
However, his NHL season has not matched that high point. Matthews has recorded 52 points in 58 games for Toronto. The numbers make for a solid total, but they’re below the point-per-game pace fans have come to expect from one of the league’s elite scorers.
As the Leafs’ struggles have continued, concern among fans has grown. The franchise’s longest losing streak is 11 games, set during the 2014-15 season, and the current skid has brought back uncomfortable memories. With the team sliding in the standings, trade rumors involving Matthews briefly surfaced ahead of the deadline.
Now, NHL insider Elliotte Friedman has provided some clarity on the situation. “First of all, 0.0 dealt at the deadline, but at the end of the season they’ll have a conversation with him… They might wait a little bit to see how everything unfolds and what they decide to do, where they stand, and where everything was going,” Friedman said.
Friedman also noted that when Matthews signed his contract extension in August 2023, he made it clear to the organization that he planned to stay in Toronto as long as things didn’t go off the rails.
The belief within the Maple Leafs organization is that Matthews would not put the team in a difficult position. “If there’s any reason to think there’s anything negative going on here in terms of his future, he’s going to let them know. But at this point in time, I don’t think he’s given them any indication that he’s unhappy or wants to go anywhere,” Friedman added.
Matthews is currently in the second year of his four-year, $53 million contract, which keeps him under team control for the foreseeable future.
While the season has not gone as planned, the expectation around the league is that Toronto will regroup in the offseason and continue building around its franchise center.
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For now, the Leafs will try to halt their losing streak when they face the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday.
