Stop Worrying and Learn to Love Auston Matthews

It’s been nearly a month and a half until the draft lottery and we’re two Fridays away from the Toronto Maple Leafs stepping up to the podium. Since then, rather than be happy with the fact that the Leafs were blessed via lottery ball into acquiring one of the best draft-eligible prospects of this generation, fans and media have done everything in their power to talk about alternatives. Look at the latest trade rumour, from Boston writer Jimmy Murphy, for example:

First off, after the past two years of convincing even the most casual of fans to buy into a crash-and-burn rebuild, and getting their hopes up with the excitement of the first overall pick, there isn’t a way in hell that the Leafs are trading it. Emotions shouldn’t get the better of you in a hockey situation, but playing home games in Ottawa and Buffalo after the ACC is burnt down by frustrated fans with stereotypical names from various 905 suburbs is probably not good hockey strategy either.

As well, the Coyotes are littered with reasonably smart management. I don’t know enough about John Chayka to declare him the saviour of hockey, age/role combination be damned. But the Coyotes were already reasonably on their way to building a reasonably good young core before him, and as the team plots its moves back into the city, it seems like the days of financial turmoil are coming to a close. Dave Tippett has always been one of the smarter old-school minds as well. If nothing else, we’re talking about a competent team that has slowly vanishing budget constraints.

While I’m sure they would’ve liked some lottery love, I don’t think they’re the type of team that would take the risk of selling the entire farm and circling their build back by another couple of years in hopes that a local kid could sell more tickets. Staying bad would be much more damaging in the short term, and while they’d likely come out ahead long term from a hockey standpoint by having Matthews, it’s an assumed risk in a lot of ways.

While I think that Murphy is being led on by somebody trying to paint a very different portrait of the Coyotes than sensible reality (he’s also reporting that they’re interested in taking the $7.5 million Pavel Datsyuk plunge, despite Arizona being only $18 million from the floor with 18 players up for new contracts), an offer like this makes sense from their part. Mostly because it’s not a good one.

Domi or Dvorak would be emotional acquisitions for the Leafs, acquired for their “chemistry” with Mitch Marner in London or because of Max’s father. Both are very good prospects, but neither are projected to be game-breakers and would likely be supporting core forwards; a label that a lot of Leafs forwards already have attached to them, even if their likeliness and maximum upside might not be quite as high. From there, it becomes a matter of the picks. Let’s take a look at every 1st, 7th (Arizona’s position) and 20th (Arizona’s other first via NYR) overall pick in the Cap Era.

Modern analysts have increasingly moved to the belief that the value of first round picks after the first few has been inflated over the years, and that lower round selections might be a little undervalued. This doesn’t speak to the latter, but it might speak a little to the former. In every nearly every scenario (lol Erik Johnson), the scale is clearly tilted to the top pick.

But what if scouts are just bad, you might ask? The Leafs have good scouts. Could they catch up? With that considered, I used hindsight to pick the best of the Top 3 at 1, the best of 7-10 at 7, and the best of 20-25 at 20. 

You could make some vaguely convincing arguments for a couple years, but 2012 appears to be the only “no-shit” year to trade down. Even still, more of that might come from Montreal’s misuse of Galchenyuk than anything.

Of course, this rumour has created a lot of chatter, and a lot of fans are either on board or are talking about counter-offers and scenarios when they could trade down. But this is also the same fanbase that as a group of people talking about drafting Patrik Laine instead, or fearing that in “typical Toronto fashion”, Matthews will fail to meet expectations.

I understand that it’s been a rough few m..y..decades to be a fan of the Leafs. Nothing has ever really gone to plan, but a lot of that stems from the fact that there’s never been a cohesive and coherent message starting from the ice to the board room to the board of directors. The Leafs may have had some low-odds failures, but they also set themselves up for failure often over the years through being bad at their jobs.

The team has benefited from beginning its first full-thought rebuild at exactly the right time, with outside staff moving on in the midst of the moment and finding a team with infinite resources looking to bring them into the fold. That’s a bit lucky, but more than anything, Toronto is now using a blend of resources and brain trust to put together a situation that makes targets and goals more achievable than ever.

Auston Matthews is one of the best prospects to be draft eligible in a very long time. Sure, he’s no Connor McDavid, but neither is anybody that’s been in the draft other than Lemieux, Lindros, and Crosby. All signs point to Matthews being exactly what Toronto has craved for years; a hard working, dynamic offensive centre who always knows where to be on the ice. 

Some will tell you this is a two-horse race, but victory laps for the top guy in May and June are boring and bad for ratings. 

Some will tell you that trading him for a million assets makes more sense; that’s great until the Leafs end up with too many players under contract and none of them are elite forwards below legal drinking age.

Some will tell you that this is the Leafs and that things are going too right for things to not eventually go wrong. This organization and this city has had this mentality for my entire life, and all it’s led to is panic decisions in an attempt to avoid the very thing they skate themselves into.

Like Lamoriello, Babcock, and most of the transactions the team has made in the past year and change, this opportunity fell into Toronto’s lap not because they’re being set up for failure, but because they sat in the path of opportunity. The draft is in two weeks. Auston Matthews is going to put on a Leafs jersey. Stop worrying about what could go wrong and remind yourself about why it’s all going right.