Are the Maple Leafs going to trade Auston Matthews?

There is no reporting that Toronto is shopping Matthews. The idea comes from a Daily Faceoff bold-prediction column by Matt Larkin, who labelled it a long shot. GM John Chayka said in September he hopes Matthews retires a Maple Leaf.

Does Auston Matthews have a no-movement clause?

Yes. Matthews has a full no-movement clause in his four-year, $53-million contract, so he cannot be traded without his approval and effectively chooses any destination.

When does Auston Matthews' contract expire?

Matthews' contract carries a $13.25-million cap hit and runs through the end of the 2027-28 season. He becomes eligible to sign an extension on July 1, 2027.

Who predicted Auston Matthews would be traded to the Flyers?

Daily Faceoff's Matt Larkin predicted in his 25 bold predictions for 2026-27 that Matthews would ask out if Toronto missed the playoffs and be traded to Philadelphia before the 2027 draft, with Matvei Michkov in the return. He put it in his hottest, least likely tier.

Did the Flyers sign Leo Carlsson?

No. Philadelphia signed Carlsson to a five-year, $90-million offer sheet on July 3, 2026, but the Anaheim Ducks matched it on July 9, keeping him in Anaheim at an $18-million cap hit.

How many goals did Auston Matthews score in 2025-26?

Matthews scored 27 goals in 60 games in 2025-26 before a Grade 3 MCL tear in his knee ended his season in March. He had surgery and returned for the 2026 preseason.

Auston Matthews Trade Prediction to the Flyers Gets the Leafs Wrong

The Auston Matthews trade prediction, explained

The loudest Auston Matthews trade talk of the new season did not come from an insider. It came from a prediction column. In Daily Faceoff's 25 bold predictions for 2026-27, Matt Larkin forecast that the Maple Leafs miss the playoffs again, that Matthews tells management he wants to move on, and that John Chayka trades him to the Philadelphia Flyers before the 2027 NHL Draft in a package that brings Matvei Michkov to Toronto.

Larkin put it in his "piping-hot" tier, which is his own way of saying it is a long shot. It has still travelled, through Leafs blogs, rumour roundups and every corner of social media where a two-game-old season can be turned into a crisis. So it is worth taking seriously enough to explain why it is wrong.

Our position: the premise is plausible, the conclusion is not, and the real Matthews story in 2027 is an extension negotiation, not a trade request.

What the prediction gets right

Start with the fair parts. The Leafs could miss the playoffs again. Preseason models had them in the low 90s for points with roughly a 37 per cent chance of making the playoffs, and the Atlantic Division is not getting easier. Boston, Montreal and Florida all won their openers, and Toronto is 1-1-0 heading into Saturday's game against Ottawa. Two games in, the margin for error already looks thin.

Larkin is also right that Chayka is not sentimental. He traded Matthew Knies, the most popular young skater on the roster, the day before the season opener. A GM who will do that will at least take a call on anybody.

And the contract timeline is real. Matthews' current deal ends after 2027-28. If the Leafs miss the playoffs in April, he will enter the summer of 2027 with one season left, which is the classic moment when stars either extend or force a move.

The contract facts that shape everything

Every Matthews scenario runs through the terms of his current deal. The key details are below.

TermDetailLength and valueFour years, $53 millionCap hit$13.25 millionExpiresEnd of 2027-28Signing bonusesAbout $49.65 million of the $53 millionTrade protectionFull no-movement clauseExtension eligibleJuly 1, 2027

The no-movement clause is the whole ballgame. Matthews decides whether he is traded and where. That turns any "Leafs trade Matthews" prediction into a "Matthews picks a team" prediction, and those are very different things. You can see the full breakdown on our Maple Leafs contracts page.

Why it would not be the Flyers

Larkin's case for Philadelphia rests on two points: that Michkov cannot get on the same page as Rick Tocchet, and that the Flyers proved with their Leo Carlsson offer sheet that general manager Daniel Brière will spend big on a star centre.

The second point cuts both ways. Philadelphia tendered Carlsson a five-year, $90-million offer sheet on July 3, an $18-million average annual value. Anaheim matched on July 9. As we noted when the Carlsson offer sheet hit the Leafs' summer, it proved the Flyers want a centre. It also proved they want one who is 21, not one who turns 30 in September 2027 coming off a major knee injury.

Michkov, meanwhile, scored 26 goals and 63 points as a rookie in 2024-25 and took a step back in 2025-26 under Tocchet. That makes him an obvious name for trade speculation. It does not make him the centrepiece of a deal for a player with full control over his destination. If Matthews ever asked out, he would pick a team built to win now, and he would be under no obligation to pick one that needs to move its best young winger to get him.

What Matthews and Chayka have actually said

The prediction also has to get past the public record, and the record is not ambiguous. In June, reporting from Pierre LeBrun had Matthews telling Chayka he was committed to the team's direction, which we covered as the captain question finally settling. At media day in September, Chayka said he hopes the day Matthews stops being a Maple Leaf is the day he retires, and Matthews said his intent has always been to be in Toronto.

We broke that exchange down in our piece on Chayka's retirement comment. Public statements are not contracts. But a captain who said all of that in September, after the GM traded his winger and handed him Kirill Marchenko on a $12.5-million extension, has bought in to this rebuild-on-the-fly. One bad spring is a reason to be frustrated. It is not obviously a reason to leave a market he chose twice.

The knee changes the trade math too

Matthews scored 27 goals in 60 games last season before a Grade 3 MCL tear ended his year in March and required surgery. He came back to play in preseason, posted three points in the finale and showed the speed numbers teams wanted to see.

That matters for a trade. A buyer in June 2027 would be acquiring a soon-to-be 30-year-old with one year left, a knee that has been rebuilt, and a cap hit north of $13 million that he would need to extend at a higher number. Larkin's prediction treats Matthews as a pure asset to be cashed out. The market would treat him as a complicated one, and teams with Michkov-level young talent are exactly the teams that would think twice.

The real 2027 story: an extension, not a request

Here is our take. The scenario to plan for is not Matthews asking out. It is Matthews and the Leafs sitting down on July 1, 2027, with the club needing to decide how much to pay a 30-year-old captain whose next contract will be measured against Macklin Celebrini's record deal and a rising cap.

That negotiation is where Chayka's nerve will actually be tested. If Toronto misses the playoffs, the question is whether he extends Matthews at market value on a long term or plays the final year out. Trading him to Philadelphia for a struggling winger is the least likely of the three outcomes.

The structure of his current deal is a clue to how that negotiation could go. Matthews took four years instead of eight in 2023 and loaded almost all of the money into signing bonuses. That was a bet on himself and on reaching the open market again while still in his prime. A player who structured his last contract to keep his options open is not going to hand those options away in a trade request. He is going to use them at the bargaining table.

That puts the pressure on Toronto, not on Matthews. The best way for Chayka to avoid ever hearing the word "trade" is to make the 2026-27 Leafs good enough that the extension conversation starts from belief rather than frustration.

And if it ever did come to a trade, the Leafs should not take it. Toronto has spent 10 years building around Matthews. Moving him for futures in the franchise's 100th season, with Gavin McKenna on an entry-level deal and Marchenko locked in, would throw away the one window this roster was assembled for.

What's next

The only thing that would make this prediction look smart is a bad October. That is why Saturday's game against Ottawa and the rest of the opening month matter more than any hot-take column. Watch the Matthews line at five-on-five, where it has not yet scored this season, and the standings gap in the Atlantic by American Thanksgiving. If both look fine, the Philadelphia talk dies on its own. If both look bad, the conversation will be about an extension price, and that is a fight Toronto can afford to have.