Auston Matthews Signs 4-Year Extension, Sets New Standard For NHL Pay

The National Hockey League has a new highest-paid player.

On Wednesday, center Auston Matthews inked a four-year contract extension worth $53 million with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The deal will take effect in the 2024-25 season, and will carry a cap hit of $13.25 million per year.

For the last five seasons, Connor McDavid’s cap hit of $12.5 million per year with the Edmonton Oilers has been the highest in the league, per CapFriendly. That will be surpassed this fall by Nathan MacKinnon of the Colorado Avalanche, who comes in at a cap hit of $12.6 million under the first season of his new eight-year deal.

Drafted first overall by the Maple Leafs in 2016, Matthews had strong leverage in his contract negotiation — starting with the fact that he could become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season. And while the Leafs have won just one playoff round since he joined the team seven years ago, Matthews’ 299 goals lead all players during that span — two more than Alex Ovechkin’s 297 goals with the Washington Capitals and 10 more than McDavid.

Matthews, who turns 26 on Sept. 17, already has two Rocket Richard Trophies as the league’s top goal-scorer in a season. In 2021-22, his 60-goal campaign also earned him the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player and the Ted Lindsay Award as league MVP as voted by the players themselves.

After undergoing wrist surgery during the 2022 offseason, Matthews was limited to a disappointing-for-him 40 goals and 85 points in 2022-23 season, in Year 4 of a five-year deal that carries a cap hit of just over $11.6 million.

An American who grew up in the non-traditional hockey market of Arizona, rumors had swirled for years that Matthews would seize the opportunity to leave the intense scrutiny of Canada’s biggest hockey market in order to play stateside. The four-year term of the new deal means he’ll still be able to consider that option at age 30, at the end of the 2027-28 season — while he is still expected to be playing at an elite level.

For now, though, there’s unfinished business. The Leafs have established themselves as one of the top regular-season teams in the league in recent years, but have not been able to get the job done in the playoffs. That’s part of the reason why the team chose to part ways with former general manager Kyle Dubas in mid-May, at a time when the team was facing a number of big financial decisions in addition to Matthews’ extension.

On May 31, Toronto replaced Dubas with Brad Treliving, who was coming off a nine-year tenure with the Calgary Flames. And while there was initially some concern that the management change might spook Matthews, the final deal negotiated by his agent, Judd Moldaver, looks very much like what was rumored at the beginning of the offseason. Matthews becomes the NHL’s highest-paid player based on the average annual value of his deal, and the mid-range length of the contract gives him the opportunity to hit one more financial home run while still in the prime of his career.

According to CapFriendly, Matthews’ estimated career earnings to date come in just shy of $53 million over seven years. With this new deal, he stands to make another $61 million in real money over the next five years.

And while Treliving has done well to get to the finish line on this deal and lock up his most important player, there’s still more work to be done with Toronto’s ‘Core Four’ forwards.

The veteran, John Tavares, turns 33 on Sept. 20. He is signed for two more years at a cap hit of $11 million per season, with a full no-movement clause.

Mitch Marner, 26, led the Leafs with 99 points last season and was named a finalist for the Selke Trophy as the league’s best defensive forward — a rare honor for a winger. He’s under contract for two more seasons at a cap hit of $10.9 million.

William Nylander, 27, also hit career highs last season with 40 goals and 87 points, and followed that up with a strong showing in the playoffs. At a cap hit of just under $7 million, he has the lowest salary burden of the Core Four. As such, he should be due for a significant raise after his current contract expires at the end of the 2023-24 season.

Speaking at the NHL’s player media tour on Wednesday, before the Matthews extension was announced, Nylander sounded confident that his future will also be in Toronto, rather than leaving as an unrestricted free agent.

“I still have one more year, and I know how much I love it there,” Nylander told Elliotte Friedman and Jeff Marek of Sportsnet. “And it would take a lot for me to want to leave Toronto. Like, that’s a place I want to be at. And that’s where my mind’s at for the coming year and for the future. I’m not thinking about being anywhere else.”

The issue, of course, is cap space. Matthews’ extension leaves the Leafs with just over $54 million committed to just 12 players for the 2024-25 season. Even with the salary cap finally expected to rise by $4 million to $87.5 million, that leaves just $33.5 million to add between eight and 11 players to fill out Toronto’s roster. That money goes fast if Nylander gets an extension that takes him into the eight-figure range.

Now that Treliving has cost certainty on Matthews, the real work begins.