What Could The Maple Leafs Discuss With Auston Matthews In The Summer?
When the Toronto Maple Leafs' disastrous 2025-26 season comes to an end, they'll have a pivotal, possible franchise-altering discussion with captain Auston Matthews,
Video Transcript
What's the plan for them moving forward?
Well, I mean, interesting part of that is, is who's gonna be, who's gonna be drawing out that plan.
Um- And, and, and that's why it's kinda hard to see because I, I got to imagine there's gonna be some changes that way.
And so i- if it is somebody new coming in, it's-- I, I think y- you gotta think in Toronto they're not ready to blow it up.
they don't wanna go rock bottom.
they've got too many great players in Auston Matthews and Nylander and, and, I mean, Tavares is still playing great and he's obviously willing to, to kinda stick around and, and, and help out that way.
but it's gonna be a big change.
but I think that most likely you're gonna be looking at trying to completely remake the way this team is put together, but getting back to being competitive next year.
But Ryan makes a great point, like you have to be legit competitive to, to truly have a chance to make the playoffs.
This Atlantic division is good and their teams aren't going away.
There's no reason Buffalo's gonna go away next year.
Detroit's on the up.
Montreal's on the up.
Ottawa's on the up.
Tampa's not going anywhere.
Florida's gonna be back next year, guaranteed.
And so it, it's-- How long do you want this thing to go?
And, and it's, it's such a tricky-- Rebuilding, retooling is so tricky because if you don't do it properly and you try too hard to be competitive next year, then you just push yourself out that much further.
you know, or-- And if you go, if you go deep, then you gotta be prepared for a couple of, couple of tough goes, especially when your division's looking like that.
So I think for Toronto, they're probably gonna try to be competitive next year.
but there's gonna be major change on, on kind of how they build this team, what it looks up and down the lineup, how they're gonna play.
I think they really need to look in the mirror and realize that, the years of, of, you know, the last three, four, five years where they're hundred plus points every year is well past us with, with Mitch Marner gone, and, they're gonna have to make some changes.
