[Chris Johnston] Auston Matthews n’a pas révélé grand-chose sur son avenir à Toronto. Il dit que c’est un honneur d’être capitaine et de porter le maillot, mais il ajoute qu’il ne sait pas ce que l’avenir lui réserve et ne sait pas à quoi ressembleront les nouveaux dirigeants et managers du club.
—
bangnburn
46 Comments
More from Alter:
Auston Matthews on his place with the Leafs and his future: “I can’t predict the future. There’s obviously steps that are going to have to take place with new leadership management and stuff like that. I don’t really know. I don’t really know. I can’t really predict the future.”
The only thing you can take from this statement is that he’s probably in the same camp as Willy, where he won’t stick around for a rebuild, otherwise, he’ll resign.
Thanks for your services!
What was the question here? This reads very different depending on whether the question was “do you see a future in Toronto” or “what’s the plan for next season”
I have my google cert for project management, let me run this team. I also have taken them to the cup on EA sports.
Rumour is that he met with Pelley this week. I’d say that’s promising in the sense that he wants to have more say. He always seemed deferential, but maybe he’s realizing time is of the essence, time to get this shit sorted out.
That’s as clear an answer as you could get it. Like genuinely that’s Mitch Marner 2.0 waiting to happen.
Forget the competitiveness of the team, compare it to Willy’s answers about wanting to be in Toronto.
We’re actually going to lose arguably our best player in history due to the worst management I’ve ever seen destroying the team in a year
Nothing burger
2 years from now can look completely different and he doesn’t know the management team yet.
Such a fair comment
Someone ask ChatGPT if we should trade him or not and we can find out
We are morphing into the Canucks. If we don’t take action now we will lose Matthews and Nylander and have Tavares turn into an older Brock Boeser
I think he’s just waiting to see what direction this ship is going. Upcoming season will be a pivotal one. If it’s continuing down a bad trajectory, we’ll see the rest of the core move out probably. I can easily see us being mid but not horrible next season and him accepting a huge contract extension. But this is just the beginning of the incessant discussion around Auston Matthews’s future and I’m already getting tired of it.
I know it’s not the most popular opinion but honestly doing a rebuild wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
Taking everyone’s words at face value if we get bumped in the lottery, retool doesn’t work and we’re forced to rebuild would you trade Papi and Willy either at next years trade deadline or next offseason?
They WERE the rebuild. Of course they’re not sticking around for another one.
It sucks because if he doesn’t want to rebuild, we’ll need to trade him. But with his NMC, we won’t get full value. He won’t want to go to a loser.
Similar boat as Willy I’d imagine. If new management wants to do a rebuild then he’s out. If they’re gonna try to get back to the playoffs ASAP then he’ll stay. I don’t think MLSE will hire somebody whose pitch is a full rebuild so I imagine he’ll be staying but who knows. I can’t predict the future either.
I mean did we expect him to say anything different? Obviously the guy doesn’t know what the future holds, he’s not the GM.
As expected though. It’s a clown show at the top right now and right now there is no sense of direction. Giving an answer before that is figured out would be stupid of him.
He gon
Breaking news: Pro Athlete wants to win.
That’s literally all to take from here. He’s not young enough to stay around for a rebuild but not too old that he can’t still be the driving force behind a cup winning team. If we can win in the next couple years he stays.
This is a great response by Auston. Putting real pressure on ownership to hire a competent leadership group to build a winning team. If they don’t, he walks. Good for him.
What else can he say?
Sounds like he has one step out the door
in my opinion i think he’ll stay until his contract ends. but if the team still looks bad by then and is still being run by a bunch of clowns then he’ll leave
What happens if the leafs should win either the #1 or #2 pick in the draft lottery? Do the leafs take McKenna at #1? If so, do they rebuild around a new core of McKenna, Knies, Danford, Arty allowing Nylander and Matthews to be moved?
A lot depends on how the lottery balls bounce.
It’s all very simple. The team moves in the right direction next season: Matthews and Nylander are likely interested in staying.
They don’t move in the right direction: Matthews and Nylander likely want out.
I would define moving in the right direction as getting a new player friendly coach that lets these guys be stars and be competitive and in the playoff race right to the very end (and hopefully make it).
Just blown it up. Are we really going to play the middling role until Matthews and Nylander abandon ship for pennies or nothing at all?
You can get 3 or 4 solid assets for each of them. Blow it up and focus on developing the next Gen team. I’d rather the next three years be bad than mediocre.
I wonder if the players genuinely believe they have the right pieces to get right back into contention. They know how good their division rivals are now and they must be aware how difficult it is to make the playoffs.
I still think they have the good players to rebound. It’s kinda like the Pittsburgh situation a year ago where everyone thought they were lottery picks but all their key pieces preformed to their expectations and are younger. A coaching change is the easiest way to get everyone back to their prior levels.
I hope Auston regardless still signs an extension with us so if we do do a full rebuild, we can at least recoup assets and avoid a Marner 2.0.
Chris Johnston vague rage bait lol.
This organization is a mess. The CEO doesn’t know what he’s doing, so he’s using AI for suggestions. Berube may or may not be back next season, which is inexcusable. Part of your future is hinging on a lottery miracle because of an atrocious trade. On and on and on. It’s a mess. It’s all a mess right now.
I can’t blame any player currently on this team, answering today, if they say that they don’t know what the future holds. That they have may have some doubts about wanting to stay with the Leafs.
A perfectly reasonable answer from a star player on a contract that ends in a couple years. No reason to be arsed by this, really
The bigger problem here is that this team is always 2-4 steps behind in every situation. They have to decide if they want to retool or rebuild and if it is a rebuild then they have to let the players know as soon as possible so they can potentially get something for them in trades. They can’t afford to just ride it out and see what’ll happen anymore. Getting nothing for Matthews and Nylander if they do decide to rebuild would be a catastrophic disaster. As Steve Dangle said on his podcast this organization would be late to their own funeral. I don’t understand how they have all these people in Management and they consistently make bad decisions
Bro get him the fuck out of here, done with nerds who don’t wanna be here. Rather be in the gutter for the next 20 years than go through another bitch marner situation
He doesn’t want to stay through a rebuild is what I’m taking from all this.
And he’s waiting for new management to provide clarity on the situation and the path forward.
I do wonder whether Matthews sees himself playing in the US at some point as well…
Either way, I don’t think his answers provide much confidence that he plans to stay beyond his contract, but that could just be me.
Between the complete public display of embarrassment from the front office/corporate, to the publicly traded Rogers takeover leading to penny pinching, to the abysmal season we just had, to the possible legislation restricting selling tickets over face value, to the Leafs inability to sell single game seats leading to the worst attendance their barn has ever seen….and now wishy washy comments from AM34….
Its gonna be weirdly empty in our barn next year.
I think the golden goose has taken its last breath.
It’s hard when only 1 quote is taken from like 10 minutes of him talking and answering questions. When you listen to the whole thing, it puts things into perspective a bit more. He was also asked if he thinks he can still win here and he said he does and that he still believes in this team. On the TSN podcast, it was also revealed that he’s been with the team throughout his entire injury which I think also says a lot about him wanting to be here.
https://preview.redd.it/8q3avtiookvg1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=369673d0eeec9dfb0c550d87d2201e3e173bae18
The leafs don’t have a first round pick next year or the year after. If they want to truly rebuild then have to trade Auston and Nylander because that’s the only way they’ll get significant futures
Can we trade this fucker please?
Are we going to beg him to stay like another Marner situation?
No thank you.
Full rebuild LFG
Trade him now and get as much as you can. If they keep Berube, Matthews will never perform to his highest under that guy.
We still have a top 5 Center (we hope) in Matthews, a 90 point winger in Nylander, a power forward in Knies, and Tavares is still a great complimentary piece scoring 30g and 70p… there’s pieces in place for a competitive team for sure.
If Philly and Pitt can turn it around with what they had, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Toronto do it either considering who they still have
If you read between the lines, this guy is keeping his options open.
Basically expect to see what happened with the Canucks and Quinn this year with Matthews if the team is terrible and a rebuild is the only way out. I don’t blame him or Nylander or anyone over 28 for not wanting to stick around.
This is a fair comment from Auston. It’s clear his future with the team depends on whether the new management elects for a retool or a full rebuild.
If it’s the latter, I assume he will need to be traded for picks / younger players. If it’s the former, the question is whether he has faith in the new Management / MLSE to deliver. He’s arguably already wasted his prime w/ the ineffective management in Toronto.
There’s nothing to find fault with in his statement.
It’s genuinely weird that people (read: media idiots) expect a person that has dedicated their life to excelling in one very narrow area of their life to abandon all of that in order to continue to play for an organization that has not shown itself capable of excellence. I don’t blame him.