Except...Matthews is not Gretzky so probably not. Whats stopping the Yotes from waiting til he is a free agent and sign him without losing Shane Wright in the process.

yeah, that's not even close for Matthews and not even remotely close to a mirror for the Gretzky trade. Which was a trade Edmonton lost highhandedly btw.

because the Yotes have a 1000x better chance on moving to Regina than they do signing a guy like Matthews

And you know this? Sorry but you're not exactly Elliotte Friedman spending most of your day on Capfriendly lol.

and you know that they wont? or that Matthews even has interest in Arizona? or that Arizona will 100% get Shane Wright? Might wanna slow down tossing around credibility claims, Bob Mackenzie.

ARI declines. Will sig him in four years plus Matthews won't end their rebuild

Jakob Chychrun would have to be part of any return package.

No **** he’s not like Gretzky. It reminds me of it because he’s a superstar “going” from a hockey town to the opposite. The trade would help both franchises on and off ice.

Arizona literally asked players to hold off on cashing checks last year. They won't be around in 3 years to even talk about this. Also Matthews loves the spotlight, he won't get that in Arizona with their 4 thousand fans in attendance. He's going to stay in TO. Also this trade is crap.

It doesn't help TO. They lose a 23 year old super star for some middle 6 no bodies and a couple of picks.

When he resigns in TO so many trolls will cry.

Eh I don’t know about that one. If the leafs continue to choke in the 1st round it’s possible he walks in 3 years. Arizona will likely get top 5 picks for the next 2 seasons so they’ll be on the rise by the time matthews signs with them

so you've invented a worst case scenario for his team and then assume he's going to go to a team that would be in a worse spot than the team he is leaving? He'll be nearing 27 years old and is gonna sign with a team that has not only been in the basement for longer than the leafs have been making the playoffs, but has had scandal after scandal for everything from player development to not paying their players bonus' to anything else you can think of?
All because he's from there? man, people are really selling this to themselves hard eh? You think it's hard to find a superstar that changes teams, wait till you try to find one that changed teams to sign with the most clown show franchise in the entire league.

The worst case scenario is realistic. The leafs haven’t shown they have what it takes to get out of the 1st round. Hyman is a huge loss, muzzin + Brodie can fall off a cliff soon.

Armstrong is a very good GM and there’s a good chance he turns things around in Arizona. He can change the direction of the franchise and by the time Matthews is a UFA I don’t think he’ll care about a player development scandal from 3 -5 years prior.

yeah, like i said, just inventing scenarios for the sake of it. Arizona has been a trashfire and Armstrong has done absolutely nothing to show that he is a good GM.
As far as the Leafs go, they've gone toe to toe with contending teams and pushed them to 6 and 7 games before two wacky ass covid seasons

Armstrong has had a very good offseason - he has done a great job weaponizing his cap space. He fleeced Vancouver , drafted guenther who was a top 5 talent in the draft. Arizona has 7 picks in the first two rounds 2022 draft.

The leafs best players don’t show up in big games - especially over the last 3 years. Columbus and Montreal are not good teams , the leafs might have to face one of Florida/Tampa in the 1st round next season, both teams are significantly better than the leafs.