NHL insider questions whether Maple Leafs would consider trading captain Auston Matthews as part of Core 4 rejig

By Jackson Weber

Modified May 21, 2025 09:07 GMT

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Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs just endured another playoff failure.

The Maple Leafs coughed up a 2-0 series lead over the Florida Panthers, losing four of the next five games in Round 2. If that wasn't bad enough, they capped it off by getting booed out of their building in a 6-1 Game 7 loss on Sunday night.

Blown series leads and core players not showing up in big games have caused the fan base to turn on them.

The question now becomes, where does Toronto go next? Mitch Marner and John Tavares are easy outs as pending UFAs, but could it go deeper than that? NHL insider Frank Seravalli dove into the conversation about trading Auston Matthews in his latest article for Daily Faceoff.

"There's a million reasons why they should keep him, but he hasn't looked like a threat in a while. It's admittedly very unlikely that Toronto would move on from Matthews, but how many questions or thought exercises should be totally off the table for this Toronto team?" Seravalli wrote.

Seravalli acknowledged how dominant a player Matthews can be, though he reiterated the concerns over his playoff performances and injury history.

Matthews just completed the first season of his four-year, $53,000,000 contract extension signed with the Maple Leafs in 2023.

Auston Matthews called his team out after yet another Game 7 loss

Game 7s have not been kind to Auston Matthews and the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The 27-year-old fell to 0-6 in Game 7s following Sunday night's loss, and it was the most lopsided defeat of them all.

Matthews showed displeasure with the team's performance in his postgame media availability.

"I thought the first 10 minutes, they came out strong. The next 10 minutes, we controlled play," Matthews said, "and then I just thought we had too many passengers throughout the rest of the game."

Matthews has been taking plenty of flak for those comments after putting forth a relatively lifeless performance himself. He finishes the postseason with 11 points (three goals, eight assists) in 13 games.

While he will very likely remain a Maple Leaf moving forward, it's fair to wonder just how different the roster around him could look to begin the 2025-26 campaign. It all shapes up to be potentially the most important offseason in the Toronto Maple Leafs' franchise history.