Quote:
Originally Posted by Spurs
isn't the Matthews signing basically going to come down to a. will the Leafs give him the ridiculous contract he will want and b. does he want to stay in Canada?
I can't see how Dubas being there or not would change anything unless you think Dubas would change the mind of ownership on what they would/wouldn't pay which seems unlikely.
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I think you hit the two major factors on the head. There was probably a level of trust with Dubas he had in that he knew Dubas traditionally wanted to keep his buddies around, and perhaps if he was forced to deal one of them away, he'd do it with respect to Matthews (whatever that means). Now with a new person he doesn't know, he could be having doubts on the direction the new guy wants to take it. So the big issue of dollars will be there, and I'm sure at this point he's at comfort playing in Canada if he's getting $13M+, but there's an unknown element of trust that he may want to poke his nose into. It may be along the lines of, "I'm worth $15M, I'll take a $1.5M discount to be here, but who am I going to be playing with?" With Dubas he could assume it, with unknown guy, who knows? The challenge is getting him signed before July 1st so the new GM can have autonomy to deal Marner or Nylander to an expanded set of teams. Now if Matthews says I'll wait and see, it makes dealing his buddies harder and narrows the possible teams to work with if a deal is made after July 1st.