13 Dec 2019 17:16:22
Leafs-Matthews kapinen and liljegren
CBJ- Dubois and Jones

Leafs get better on the back end while adding a solid #2 center man and gain cap space. Jackets get a top center and top 6 winger and A potential top 3 dman that could break their roster next year if not this year. Columbus may be a good place for Matthews as he visably doesn't like the media attention in Toronto he could fly under the radar and just do his thing.

13 Dec 2019 17:28:52
CBJ hang up on this obvious crank call. Easy no.

13 Dec 2019 18:15:25
Not terrible value but the leafs will not be trading a top 10 player in the league who still has 5 years left on his contract.

13 Dec 2019 18:21:14
wow. Joe knows so much about how all the other teams think. Doesn’t matter that Jones and Dubois combined don’t have as many goals or points as Matthews, who is rated 8th overall for his position vs Dubois at 41. And a team that just lost five top forwards to free agency might want some replacements you would think no? But Joe is so smart he doesn’t have to tell us any way to make the trade work or his reasons for not liking it. We just take his word for it because he has proved to be right so many times in the past.

13 Dec 2019 18:38:36
Columbus doesn't touch this imo, I'd rather have Jones than Matthews. I'd rather have Dubois than kapanen and a spare part.

13 Dec 2019 18:58:34
Easy no from CBJ. Jones>Matthews, Dubois>Kapanen and Liljegren.

And Matthews is NOT a top 10 player in the league lmao. Draisaitl, McDavid, MacKinnon, Marchand, Pasternak, Eichel, Scheifele, Crosby, Malkin, Ovechkin are all better than Matthews, just to start with 10, could easily name more.

13 Dec 2019 19:53:59
So grateful @Vertius for clearing all that up. Putting the word “not” in all caps so must be right. Matthews night not be top 10 in the league, but he is most definitely ranked top 10 for his position. Leafs would bunch rather retain Matthews over Dubois any day. Jones is great, no doubt about it, but saying he’s better than Matthews or worth more than Matthews has got to be the dumbest thing you e said yet.

13 Dec 2019 21:36:39
Mathews is much better then Malkin, Marchand, Pasta, Eichel andSchifele.

13 Dec 2019 23:03:17
Vertius, I’m not a big fan of Matthews but you cannot deny he’s very skilled and I’m not one to say that draisaitl is a product of mcdavid, but you did label draisaitl as a top 10 player in the league. If Matthews being a pure shooter was playing in draisaitl place would he be considered a top 10 player in the league? This is pure speculation of course but is it not realistic to say that he (Matthews) could score 50-60 and top 100 points if playing along mcdavid? This is not a knock at Leon cause I think he’s a great player but you can’t seriously put Leon in top 10 in the league and not have Matthews in the top 15 or so. Matthews has proven he can carry a line and push the play, he’s not bad defensively how many points did Leon put up when mcdavid was hurt or when he was centeribg his own line?

14 Dec 2019 03:13:49
Lmao. Matthews is NOT better than Pasta, Marchand or Eichel. Wtf.

14 Dec 2019 04:25:39
He is atleast just as good as the 3.

14 Dec 2019 15:38:37
@HockeyFanatic. Well, sorry to burst your bubble but Jones IS better and more valuable than Matthews. I could care less if you agree with me. I'll just take my 10 agrees to one disagree and look at your 1 agree to 9 disagrees and assume most people think I'm right and not you. Lmao clown.

@Mertle. I never said Matthews wasn't skilled. You'd have to be blind not to see that the kid has mad skill and is one of the best pure goal scorers in he league, but the reason I say he isn't a top 10 player in the league is because offence isn't everything.

Anyone who can set their bias for him aside will tell you that most nights he doesn't use his size to it's full effectiveness, that his two way game is shoddy and that he just floats around on the ice out there. Once he fixes those issues I'll be more than happy to consider him a top 10 player, but until then, he doesn't deserve to be above anyone I listed. Sure, not all of them may be AS gifted offensively, but their two way games more than make up for the slight gaps in production.

As for Draisaitl? No, I don't think Matthews could do what Draisaitl has. I think Draisaitl has better hockey sense and is a better goal scorer than Matthews, and going back to my original points, unlike Matthews, Draisaitl uses his body, plays a solid two hundred foot game and skates hard every shift. For me the two aren't even comparisons.

More so, I think this anti-Draisaitl narrative needs to stop. He had 105 points in 82 games last year with 50 goals, and he has 55 points this year in 34, are you really going to try and tell me that ALL of that is because of McDavid? If so than you clearly haven't watched him play. Draisaitl is special. Do I think his points would drop without McDavid? Of course, a little, but not by these 40 or whatever ridiculous totals everyone else seems to think. He would still be at least a 90 point player with 40 goals without McDavid.