No one had heard officially from Auston Matthews since Mitch Marner left the Toronto Maple Leafs for the Vegas Golden Knights.
That changed on Wednesday night.
Matthews was playing in a charity hockey event in Brampton and spoke with the media beforehand.
His message on Marner was pretty simple, via The Hockey News:
“We’ll obviously miss him. He’s a great friend, great teammate. That’s kind of the business side of it.”
Marner had spent his entire career in Toronto before leaving in a sign-and-trade on the even of free agency this summer.
The two-way superstar was a top complement to Matthews, and he’ll be pretty much impossible for the Maple Leafs to replace. There are very few players in the NHL who do everything that Marner can do in one package.
It’ll be up to Matthews in large part to set the tone for a new group to try and move past the Marner era.
The Maple Leafs brought in a handful of offseason additions with the money freed up by Marner signing a big contract to play for a different team.
That doesn’t make it easier in Toronto, though. Marner was a player fans could so easily support because of how hard he worked no matter the spot on the ice he was in.
The Golden Knights are the ones who came away with that supremely talented player, for what Matthews termed “business.”
The Maple Leafs are the ones who lost a friend and teammate, a guy Matthews acknowledges that they’ll miss.
Marner certainly is good enough to swing the entire NHL championship race with this move. It’ll be on Matthews’ shoulders to keep the Maple Leafs in the hunt anyway.
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