Lottery Win Puts Matthews Trade Talk in Motion

The Toronto Maple Leafs won the draft lottery five days ago and the hockey world is still processing it. Gavin McKenna to Toronto. Mats Sundin and John Chayka installed as the new leadership. A franchise that looked rudderless a week ago suddenly holding the most valuable asset in the sport.

And now the Auston Matthews trade rumours have started.

New, for @TheAthletic: Auston Matthews isn't yet sure if he'll be back in Toronto next season. The Maple Leafs are on the clock with their captain 🔗⬇️https://t.co/9r9zzdhuhU https://t.co/9r9zzdhuhU
— Chris Johnston (@reporterchris) May 5, 2026

It was inevitable. The moment the Leafs secured the first overall pick, the hypotheticals began circulating on social media, in hockey circles, and in the corners of the internet where the most aggressive roster deconstruction happens. The most provocative idea making the rounds is also the most logical from a pure asset management perspective -- Matthews and Morgan Rielly to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for the second overall pick, Quentin Musty, and William Eklund.

It is a blockbuster that would reshape two franchises simultaneously. Let us talk about whether it actually makes sense.

Why the Rumours Exist

Matthews is entering the final two years of his contract at $13.25 million per season. He is 28 years old, still in the prime of his career, and coming off seasons that established him as one of the two or three most dangerous goal scorers the game has ever seen. He scored 69 goals in a single season. That is not a player who gets traded under normal circumstances.

But Toronto's circumstances are not normal right now.

The new regime of Chayka and Sundin inherited a roster that missed the playoffs for the first time in a decade, a fanbase with fractured trust, and a Matthews contract situation that demands resolution. If Matthews is not re-signing in Toronto, the window to extract maximum value is exactly two years. Chayka, who built his reputation in Arizona on analytical thinking and asset management, knows that better than anyone. The lottery win gives Toronto the leverage to demand an enormous return because the Sharks, and any other interested team, know that McKenna is already locked up. Trading Matthews means dealing from a position of unexpected strength.

The Trade

Maple Leafs receive: 2nd overall pick in 2026, Quentin Musty, William Eklund.

Sharks receive: Auston Matthews, Morgan Rielly.

On paper this looks like a lot coming back for Toronto, and it is. But Matthews is a generational talent and Rielly adds a proven puck-moving defenseman that San Jose has been openly pursuing. This is not a one-player deal. It is a franchise reshaping transaction, and the return needs to reflect that.

The second overall pick is the centerpiece, and it fundamentally changes what Toronto is building. With McKenna going first, the consensus at the top of the 2026 draft class points to Swedish forward Ivar Stenberg as the clear second option. Stenberg posted 33 points in 43 games for Frolunda in the Swedish Hockey League this season, the most productive 18-year-old campaign in that league since Daniel Sedin and Henrik Sedin in 1998-99. Pairing McKenna and Stenberg on the same roster as Easton Cowan and Matthew Knies gives Toronto a forward group with a ceiling that is genuinely difficult to project.

Musty, taken 26th overall by Grier in the 2023 draft, is the kind of power forward that every contender needs and almost nobody can find late in the first round. At 6-foot-2 with legitimate offensive instincts and a physical edge that translates naturally to playoff hockey, he fits the identity Chayka is trying to build in Toronto. He is big, he is skilled, and he competes every shift. That profile is extremely valuable on a roster being rebuilt around young talent.

Eklund is arguably the most underrated piece in the entire package. At just 23 years old, the Swedish forward is already a legitimate core player carrying a $5.6 million cap hit on a bridge deal that is team-friendly by modern standards. He is skilled, two-way, and at an age where his best hockey is still ahead of him. Slotting Eklund alongside Cowan and eventually McKenna or Stenberg gives Toronto a deep, young forward group that no team in the Eastern Conference wants to face in three years.

What San Jose Gets

The Sharks are acquiring the best goal scorer of his generation at 28 years old, with two years left on his deal and the chance to extend him immediately. Matthews alongside Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith creates an offensive core that would be the envy of the entire league. Adding Rielly gives Mike Grier the puck-moving defenseman he has been publicly targeting, a player who can quarterback the power play and mentor Sam Dickinson on the back end.

San Jose would be surrendering a significant amount of their prospect depth, but the Sharks are at a point in their rebuild where the pipeline is deep enough to absorb the losses. They have Misa, Dickinson, Askarov, Halttunen, and a collection of later picks still developing. Trading from surplus to address the one thing no prospect pool can manufacture -- a proven, elite, franchise-defining center -- is exactly the kind of bold move that separates good front offices from great ones.

Grier has never been afraid of the blockbuster. This would be the biggest one of his career.

The Reality Check

Is this actually happening? Almost certainly not. Matthews has given no public indication that he wants out of Toronto, and the new regime has every incentive to make him the centerpiece of whatever they are building rather than the asset they moved to build it. Chayka's first stated priority upon being hired was sitting down with Matthews directly. That is not the language of a GM preparing to trade his best player.

But stranger things have happened in this league, and the conversation is worth having. Toronto holds more leverage right now than it has in years. The lottery win changed the math, and in a world where Matthews wants a change of scenery and the Sharks are willing to pay the price, this trade makes more sense than almost any other destination.

For now it lives in the realm of the hypothetical. But the hypothetical has never been more interesting.