Superstar forward Auston Matthews has signed a four-year, $53-million contract extension with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the team announced Wednesday. The contract carries a league-high AAV of $13.25 million.
As a Toronto fan, while I'm happy he signed and we have a good chunk of his prime, I, along with many of my comrades in arms, have been trained to give up on hope via punishment operand conditioning. Any semblance of display of hope is gouged and replaced with despair. But thank you for the kind sentiment.
My money's on Nylander. The Leafs make too much money having the boys from Toronto on the team. Plus, who's going to want Tavares's contract? He's a good player, but at that AAV he's negative value.
Good...good...incentivize the guy who never bothers to show up in the playoffs with a further five years of getting paid big bucks to continue not showing up in the playoffs.
And no...I'm not being sarcastic. Fuck the Leafs. I'm genuinely happy that team did something as stupid as this. Five more years of maybe barely getting into round 2. Maybe by the end of his five years they'll be out in 6 games instead of 4.
If in 4 years, Matthews cant win the cup with the Leafs, would a GM pay him another most expensive long term contract then? That will be a lot of cap hit for someone cant win the cup with very good players while in his prime. He is really betting on himself bring the cup to toronto.