You could be on to something but it’s not quite enough imo for the leafs to give up matthews, byfield has shown literally nothing in regards to his draft status, probably would need to include iafallo and another pick,

This is gonna need to have much more value if it's a sign and trade. Byfield, Clarke, first to start with a contract or two coming as well.

I thi k the previous offer of Kempe, Byfield and Clarke for Marner+picks is close to the LA return for Matthews. Maybe have to add a 2nd and 3rd as well.

If they are engaging in trade talks they aren't giving up Matthews. He already has a foot out the door and they are trying to recoup value.

The above package is probably a best case scenario. Teams never get full value in those situations. The ability for Matthews to say that he will only sign with as few as 1 team basically acts as a NMC that will prevent the market from escalating since multiple teams won't make huge offers of he is a 1 year rental who they cannot trade at the deadline to recoup value due to his actual NMC that activates July 1st.

Say what you want about Byfield's disappointing progress, but he is still extremely valuable. Bigger players usually take a while to get going. He still likely has value similar to a top 10 talent type prospect. To get him and a 1st is solid in this kind of scenario.

Tell that to the Flames. Even though Tkachuk made the final, that package was pretty good for a guy who had one foot out the door.

They pulled a rabbit out of their hat. That was a trade that would be very difficult to reproduce. It rarely works out that a team who wants the player has two star pending UFAs who they are willing to package up, and the team selling is willing to take the risk that the players won't stay.

That's also a completely different type of trade return than the one in the OP, where the main pieces are picks/prospects. Huberdeau and Weegar are both approaching 30 years old. If Calgary couldn't or didn't re-sign those players and instead flipped them for futures, the package for those players to a third team in the off season or at the deadline would have likely resulted in less value than what is in the OP. That is of course depending on how you value Byfield, I figure while he isn't valued as a top 3 pick, he is still valued highly.