Auston Matthews may be on track to being the greatest Toronto Maple Leaf ever.

He’s already broken the franchise goalscoring record, and is now fourth all-time on the team’s points leaderboard. All it took to get him? A poor 2015-16 season that saw the last-place Leafs earn the first-overall pick.

Former NHLer Shawn Matthias was part of that Toronto group that year up until he was dealt to the Colorado Avalanche for draft capital at the trade deadline. Joining Leafs Morning Take on Wednesday, Matthias joked with Nick Alberga that he played a role in helping Toronto secure their future captain.

“That’s my claim to fame, that’s what I tell everybody about my Leaf career, I helped you guys get that number one pick,” he said.

Of course, before his time in Toronto, he also spent some time with the Florida Panthers, in the years they drafted Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad.

“I helped Florida for a few years with some high picks too,” Matthias said. “Got Barkov one year at second, and we actually came last, so we should have had what would have been Nathan MacKinnon. But Barkov worked out pretty well for Florida too.”

All jokes aside, Matthias looks back fondly on his time in Toronto. As a Mississauga native, he shared that it was a dream come true to play for his boyhood team and he would have loved the opportunity to play more games in the blue and white sweater if he could have.

“Yeah, I would have loved to play there for 20 years,” Matthias said. “It was special. I met with the Leafs before July 1st and had an idea that was a team I might go to. And the boyhood Leaf fan in me just kinda came out. I was like, that’s where I wanna go, that’s where I wanna sign. I knew Babcock from Detroit from being drafted there. I met with him before I signed and I liked what he was telling me. I learned a lot from him. I teach hockey, and when I go out, I’m teaching things Babs taught me. … It was an amazing experience, I just wish we could have won more games.”

See Nick Alberga and Jay Rosehill’s full interview with Shawn Matthias here, and make sure to tune into Leafs Morning Take weekdays at 11am on The Leafs Nation’s Youtube channel!