A new trend that has been occurring in the NHL is players signing long-term extensions before the end of their entry-level contracts, so Auston Matthews will be in the news all summer.
The Toronto Maple Leafs number-one centre will enter the last season of his entry-level deal in 2018-19 and the team can begin contract negotiations with their player on July 1. Now, with less than a month before that date, Auston Matthews has changed his player Agency, leaving CAA and Pat Brisson to join Orr Hockey Group.
The one thing that people are really gravitating toward is the fact that this is the same agency as Connor McDavid.
Of course, for fans, that means that they’re comparing the contract that Connor McDavid signed to the one that Auston Matthews will hope to sign at some point in the next two summers. McDavid signed his deal a year before the end of his entry-level contract and he received an eight-year deal with a $12.5 million AAV.
With a new GM in the Leafs front office, there will be a lot of new variables in the Leafs negotiation with Auston Matthews, but we’re not sure sharing an agency with McDavid really means all that much. Each player will be treated with their own strategy and obviously every GM will negotiate differently as well.
One thing that Leafs Nation writer Drag Like Pull pointed out is that it may be in the Matthews’ best interest to wait for his negotiation anyways.
