Sportsnet 590 The FAN: Sam McKee and Nick Kypreos talk about the possibility of the Toronto Maple Leafs trading captain Auston Matthews, and who could be the top landing spot.
** NHLRumors transcription
McKee: “A lot of people saw what happened with Quinn Hughes, Kyp, and the way it looked at the end with Quinn Hughes in, in Vancouver. The body language and the American captain in a Canadian market, and all that stuff.
I mean, I would say that the biggest comment I get is a lot of trade Matthews. Trade Matthews. Trade Matthews. And I would be lying to you if I did, if I told you that isn’t a terrifying thought, from a Leaf fan perspective, from my perspective, at least there’s a ton of them that would want to do that.
But do you think that is a conversation that they would ever have, like as soon as this summer?”
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Kypreos: “Yes.”
McKee: “You do?”
Kypreos: “100%. Yeah, I do. And again, the no-movement clause come into play. So you have to, you have to do this together. This is just not your decision to do it.
You got to go up to Auston and say to Austin, now it’s been a rough year and a half now, two years, when you factor in what happened last year and the, the injury, or the trip to Germany, or whatever. It’s, it’s been a tough two years. Like he may be in a position where he’s like, he may go to the Leafs and say,
it’s just time for a change.
And I do believe that this is not something that can happen during this season.”
McKee: “It’s not a deadline move.”
Kypreos: “This is a summer decision. And I don’t also buy that this is Auston the rest of his career. He’s just a 30-goal scorer, and he’s just going to completely fall off. I don’t believe that other teams look at him going, this is the Austin Matthews I’m going to trade for. I don’t want them. I don’t want him. I don’t believe in that either.”
McKee: “Okay.”
Kypreos: “And I think that there’s, there are places out there, and I don’t know if you want to hold me to this, but…”
McKee: “I would love to hold you to something.”
Kypreos: “Like, Auston Matthews to the LA Kings is the play.”
McKee: “Okay, that’s the move.”
Kypreos: “That’s the move. Okay, they got Kopitar leaving, and they need somebody, and they kind of held out for, you know, the watch on McDavid. And I think if, if McDavid was LA King’s choice in a couple of years, or, you know, as early as next year, to trade for him, possibly, then Auston would fall right underneath that.”
McKee: “Wow. So, and that’s a, I mean, the, the next question that I would ask, and a lot of Leafs fans would ask, would be, does he have the similar trade value that Quinn Hughes would?”
Kypreos: “I think if, if you can’t get four pieces for Auston, you should get three quality ones for sure.”
McKee: “Okay.”
Kypreos: “Yeah, and I don’t know what that means in terms of, you need a center icman back. I don’t know if they give up (Quinton) Byfield, but it would be one of their, their their top picks up the middle.”
McKee: “So it would, It would be…”
Kypreos: “I’d like to get a defenseman back.”
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McKee: “For sure, you would think that it would be a, like players that are playing now, as opposed to…”
Kypreos: “I think I’d like two players that could play now and a first-round pick.”
McKee: “Okay, okay that’s, that’s interesting.”
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