[The Chris Johnston Show] Chris Johnston on Auston Matthews: “I can tell you, I’m very on top of the situation, he wants to remain in Toronto, I don’t know how many times I have to say it before people believe it”
Dude loves being in the spotlight, there’s no bigger spotlight then Toronto. He’s always been consistent in wanting to stay and multiple insiders have said as much.
The only reason it keeps coming up that he could leave is that it drives clicks/views for media outlets to write stories about him possibly leaving.
Itll probably be a 5 or 6 year deal but I cant wait to make r/hockey choke on it
That’s great news and all. But at what AAV?
I think everybody knows he *wants* to stay in Toronto.
The actual questions people want the answers to are; is he going to ask for $14 million, are they going to give it to him, and if they don’t, will he still want to stay?
He would like to be in Toronto, but also earned a raise. How much of a raise is the problem that our next GM will be tasked with solving.
Love to have him. For 10 mil/year
14 x 5 and we’re all gonna smile and act like that’s perfectly fine. Cap’s going up after all. No possible way the team could be adversely affected by that.
If he only wants to sign for 5 years, I’d do 12.5×5 however, if he signs for 8 I’d offer 13.5×8
prob helps arizona is rip lol
I’ll believe it when the ink is dry.
Depending on the terms, I might not even be happy about it tbh.
Sign an 8 year deal and we’ll believe it.
He has to sign a super long one like McDavid did for people to believe
And even then, there will still be trade rumours
Wanting to stay in Toronto and wanting to get paid are 2 diff things.
I wanna stay at my job location too, but I also want more money.
Nobody’s denying Matthews wants to stay, but as a player it’s also a mix of how much you think you need to sacrifice to help the team win vs getting paid.
And we want a cup.
The question is, is he the guy to bring it to us?
I have no doubt he wants to play here. He gets treated and paid like a god with zero accountability. My question is does he want to win here? Because if he’s demanding 14 or 15 mil AAV then we aren’t winning shit. Depth wins championships and if we’re paying that much for a player who has yet to show us he can put the team on his back and drag us to a championship then what are we paying for?
5 years at 14.34 per year, you heard it here first
I don’t want to hear shit until he signs.
Hot take: sign him to a bridge UFA deal in the 5 year range. Don’t commit to him in his 30s. If he wants to stay after that, great. If not, window is probably closed.
Unless we sign McDaddy.
If he wants to be top 5 paid in the league with his playoff track-record, then my preference is to trade him. If he’s insisting on a 5 year deal vs an 8 year deal, then he shouldn’t be getting a NMC.
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But if I was betting on it, he’s going to get paid the most, 5 years with a full 5 yrs of NMC!
friedman keeps saying he’ll probably sign another bridge deal and then eventually when he’s 30 sign a 8 year deal.
So ideally a 12.7 x 4-5 years would be the best case scenario. Allows him to be the highest paid player in the league AAV and doesn’t break the bank entirely.
id take a 5 year deal vs 8.
Thats the perfect age to move on and look to the future.
I love when people speculate that his contract is gonna have a 34 in it again😂 that was Dubas being buddies with his players. Matthews and Marner could’ve saved us an extra 1.2M on the cap if they didn’t have to get their number or in Marners case his junior number in their salary. I think they’ve matured enough to avoid that.
Maybe tell everyone he’ll step up and one day he will and you won’t have to type this shit out!
We need a cap exempt player (ie franchise tag) in the system like yesterday.
I want the McDavids and Matthews’ and MacKinnons and Bedards of the world to get PAID. But I want the flexibility of those superstar contracts not counting against the cap so teams can have a true middle class.
They need to sign him 6-8 years minimum. Get it done. Austin isn’t going anywhere. At least not in the prime of his career
26 comments
Dude loves being in the spotlight, there’s no bigger spotlight then Toronto. He’s always been consistent in wanting to stay and multiple insiders have said as much.
The only reason it keeps coming up that he could leave is that it drives clicks/views for media outlets to write stories about him possibly leaving.
Itll probably be a 5 or 6 year deal but I cant wait to make r/hockey choke on it
That’s great news and all. But at what AAV?
I think everybody knows he *wants* to stay in Toronto.
The actual questions people want the answers to are; is he going to ask for $14 million, are they going to give it to him, and if they don’t, will he still want to stay?
He would like to be in Toronto, but also earned a raise. How much of a raise is the problem that our next GM will be tasked with solving.
Love to have him. For 10 mil/year
14 x 5 and we’re all gonna smile and act like that’s perfectly fine. Cap’s going up after all. No possible way the team could be adversely affected by that.
If he only wants to sign for 5 years, I’d do 12.5×5 however, if he signs for 8 I’d offer 13.5×8
prob helps arizona is rip lol
I’ll believe it when the ink is dry.
Depending on the terms, I might not even be happy about it tbh.
Sign an 8 year deal and we’ll believe it.
He has to sign a super long one like McDavid did for people to believe
And even then, there will still be trade rumours
Wanting to stay in Toronto and wanting to get paid are 2 diff things.
I wanna stay at my job location too, but I also want more money.
Nobody’s denying Matthews wants to stay, but as a player it’s also a mix of how much you think you need to sacrifice to help the team win vs getting paid.
And we want a cup.
The question is, is he the guy to bring it to us?
I have no doubt he wants to play here. He gets treated and paid like a god with zero accountability. My question is does he want to win here? Because if he’s demanding 14 or 15 mil AAV then we aren’t winning shit. Depth wins championships and if we’re paying that much for a player who has yet to show us he can put the team on his back and drag us to a championship then what are we paying for?
5 years at 14.34 per year, you heard it here first
I don’t want to hear shit until he signs.
Hot take: sign him to a bridge UFA deal in the 5 year range. Don’t commit to him in his 30s. If he wants to stay after that, great. If not, window is probably closed.
Unless we sign McDaddy.
If he wants to be top 5 paid in the league with his playoff track-record, then my preference is to trade him. If he’s insisting on a 5 year deal vs an 8 year deal, then he shouldn’t be getting a NMC.
​
But if I was betting on it, he’s going to get paid the most, 5 years with a full 5 yrs of NMC!
friedman keeps saying he’ll probably sign another bridge deal and then eventually when he’s 30 sign a 8 year deal.
So ideally a 12.7 x 4-5 years would be the best case scenario. Allows him to be the highest paid player in the league AAV and doesn’t break the bank entirely.
id take a 5 year deal vs 8.
Thats the perfect age to move on and look to the future.
I love when people speculate that his contract is gonna have a 34 in it again😂 that was Dubas being buddies with his players. Matthews and Marner could’ve saved us an extra 1.2M on the cap if they didn’t have to get their number or in Marners case his junior number in their salary. I think they’ve matured enough to avoid that.
Maybe tell everyone he’ll step up and one day he will and you won’t have to type this shit out!
We need a cap exempt player (ie franchise tag) in the system like yesterday.
I want the McDavids and Matthews’ and MacKinnons and Bedards of the world to get PAID. But I want the flexibility of those superstar contracts not counting against the cap so teams can have a true middle class.
They need to sign him 6-8 years minimum. Get it done. Austin isn’t going anywhere. At least not in the prime of his career
Im going to guess it ends up being 13.4 x 5.