The Maple Leafs signed Auston Matthews to a five-year extension on Tuesday, but general manager Kyle Dubas believes the star forward's renewed commitment to the team is just another step toward a prolonged period of success in Toronto.
Speaking to the media hours after announcing Matthews' new deal, Dubas explained how keeping the team's core of young stars together is a priority for him and his staff. With Matthews locked down for the long term, the 21-year-old joins John Tavares and William Nylander as players who have committed to lengthy deals with the Leafs since the end of last season. Dubas says the aim is to keep as many of Toronto's top-end talents around for as long as possible.
"We're trying to build a team that can have sustained success, not just contend once," Dubas said. "There's a litany of teams across every professional sport, they're very good teams for a long time but they can't ever push it across the finish line. I think a lot of that is luck-related and luck-based, and I think we want to give ourselves the maximum number of chances we can to make a real good go at it."
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Convincing the likes of Matthews and Nylander to remain in Toronto, while also attracting a star free agent in Tavares, is certainly a good start for Dubas. While Nylander's negotiation included a hold out for the first two months of the season, the Matthews and Tavares deals were more straight-forward and caused little distraction.
With youngsters Kasperi Kapanen, Andreas Johnsson and team-leading scorer Mitch Marner set to be restricted free agents at the end of the season, Dubas' job got a little bit tougher after signing Matthews to a contract worth an average of $11.63 million per year. Fitting the Leafs' burgeoning young talent under the salary cap could prove to be a Herculean task, but with Nazem Kadri, Zach Hyman, Morgan Rielly, Nikita Zaitsev and Frederik Andersen all locked up in team-friendly deals for at least two more seasons, Dubas' attention can be focused on retaining talent that is comfortable within the organization.
"It creates some headaches at times, but we do have a very talented, young team and we'd rather be trying to keep that together than probably where we were at the beginning, which was trying to build it up," Dubas said. "At times it can become a bit challenging, but we're fortunate to have the quality of people that we have here as well, who are willing to work and meet us halfway."
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Contract negotiations are all about compromise and communication, and Dubas accepts the responsibility of keeping the team — currently second in the Eastern Conference — together. The key, Dubas believes, lies in making it more attractive for the players to stay in Toronto rather than test the waters elsewhere.
"Keeping the young core of our team together and building out a program where they want to stay here on their subsequent contracts, I think that falls on us," Dubas said. "It doesn't fall on the players, and it's up to us to explain to them and to be very clear in our communication with them as they come along."