Everything should be on the table for the Maple Leafs this summer

The Toronto Maple Leafs suffered another heartbreaking Game 7 loss Sunday night, this time to the Florida Panthers, by a score of 6-1. The loss ended the team’s 2024-25 season and has launched old and new questions about the “core four” of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk take part in another edition the #AskDFO segment to discuss the Leafs’ future and if there’s a world where the team moves on from several of their core four pieces.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Our first #AskDFO question asks if Maple Leafs’ General Manager Brad Treliving should consider an Auston Matthews trade this summer.

Frank Seravalli: I think they’ve arrived at this point and time where anything should be on the table. For me, it’s not just with Auston Matthews, the poor playoff success and the lack of commitment to compete and grind. (Matthews has) 26 career playoff goals in 68 career playoff games, and three of those were two-goal games, so he’s only scored in 23 of the 68 games he’s played in.

That’s an impossibly low number for a goal who is a 0.65 goals per game scorer in his career. I mean, north of 400 goals in his career, and to be at this point where you continue to fall short in teh playoffs, that’s tough.

But here’s the other reason that I would say it merits some thought exercise or discussion in the Maple Leafs’ front office: the chronic injuries. If this truly is a back injury, how many of those lower-back injuries ever actually get better? These guys aren’t 19 anymore, they’re not 23 anymore, they’re not 24. They’re getting older, and I think to engage in the question and thorough analysis of this team, it’s one that you have to ask the question, even if it’s 99 percent chance that he’s back.