As for whether signing a contract would remove a lot of weight from his shoulders, he said, "I mean, I wouldn't say [it would be a] relief. I would say it's just a step.
"For me, it's not something I think about much. When it gets done it gets done. Until then, I'm not worrying about it. I'll let my agent handle it with Kyle and his management team. They'll talk. When my agent calls and says I'm ready to sign, then I'll sign. Until then I'm focusing on the Toronto Maple Leafs and [will] just live every day."
One of Matthews' closest friends on the Maple Leafs is forward Mitchell Marner, who is also in the final year of his entry-level contract. Marner's agent, Darren Ferris, has said he will not negotiate with Toronto until the season is over.
"Mitch and I, we don't talk about it much," Matthews said. "It's not really something that comes up much. When we do talk, it's not so much about hockey as it is about other things.
"It's a big distraction as far as the media, you know, Toronto and the way they play everything. I think in our minds, we just want to play hockey and have fun and let our agents take care of it. I'm sure he's in the same boat. When his agent says they're ready, they'll move forward."
Besides, Matthews said, no contract process could be as complicated as the one he went through to play in Switzerland for the 2015-16 season.
"That was kind of a debacle a bit in the summer," he said. "I'd probably say that was a more difficult situation than the one I'm in now."
Matthews wanted to join Zurich in Switzerland's top professional league in his draft year instead of taking the more common approach of either playing in college or in the Canadian Hockey League. The Swiss government had two stipulations for him to do so: He needed to be 18 years old and a high school graduate.
Matthews turned 18 on Sept. 17, 2015, and missed Zurich's first four games. Because he would have been entering his senior year that fall, there wasn't enough time to take classes before the season, so he had to pass a high school equivalency test.
"I had to go through a ton of steps," he said. "You kind of don't know where you're going. Had to go through eight-, nine-hour tests, and I'm not a big school guy.
"My little sister is in high school right now. I look at her homework and it looks like Chinese to me. All the steps I took to make that process happen are far more stressful than this one is."
With that ordeal far behind him, Matthews said he has loved his time in Toronto.
"The city is great, the fans are passionate about the team," he said. "There's a lot of young talent on our team that they can be proud of."
