NHL Podcaster believes Matthews will get traded this off-season

Matthews is set to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2023-24 season - alongside William Nylander - and is expected to get a bump from his 11.64 million AAV. Things are going to get a little dicey just based on Nylander and his contract negotiations but it is still expected that both Matthews and Toronto will come an agreement.

The main concern is that because he's an American-born star, he wants to return to his roots whether that would be his hometown Coyotes or another budding star-spangled club. On the Cam & Strick podcast, they discussed the very open possibility of a trade being hammered down this summer to avoid losing him for nothing.

"If they don't sign him this summer then they may have to move him, in fact I think they have no choice but to move him if they don't sign him this summer. Lose him for nothing? That is risky and I don't think he's gonna re-sign there."

"If they win the cup or something like that then you can't really just trade Auston Matthews. If they lose early - and you're going to get a boat load for Auston Matthews - you can't lose him for nothing and you probably have to trade him this summer. He gone, sorry Toronto, hate to do that to you."

"Regardless, they're going to have to make him the highest paid player in the game, which he will be, but Matthew Tkachuk last off-season, he steered his way to Florida. Auston's gonna be able to do the same thing, so who's gonna step up and trade for Auston Matthews this summer."

An interesting take to say the least and even though there's some validity to what they're saying in terms of Matthews becoming the highest paid player with his next contract, the Leafs will do absolutely everything in their power to keep him around.

He hasn't given any indication on leaving or wanting to leave and even though they likened the situation to Matthew Tkachuk from this past summer, the writing was on the wall for years in Calgary. They barely ironed out their first deal post-ELC in Calgary without rumours circulating that Tkachuk wanted out. Then last summer, things got even dicier between player and club. That, at least, hasn't happened in Toronto - as of yet.