The Toronto Maple Leafs will play a massively important early-season contest against the Boston Bruins without their newly minted captain. It was announced by the Maple Leafs that superstar forward Auston Matthews would be out of the lineup on a day-to-day basis as he recovers from an upper-body injury.
While there is an obvious concern for any injury for someone of Matthews’ stature, there is belief that the Maple Leafs aren’t worried about the issue one bit. According to Darren Dreger on TSN’s Early Trading, the Maple Leafs believe Matthews won’t be out for an extended period of time.
“I can appreciate concern from Leafs Nation,” Dreger said. “But that’s not how the Toronto Maple Leafs feel going into this game against the Bruins. They say that they are not concerned, that this shouldn’t be a long-term issue.”
The early diagnosis from the Maple Leafs is that Matthews will only be out day-to-day. Dreger adds that the Maple Leafs’ upcoming schedule lends itself to a quick recovery.
“What they’re doing is taking advantage of the schedule,” Dreger said. “They’ve got a tough game against the Bruins tonight, but they don’t play again until Friday.”
The Maple Leafs will have a couple of days before a back-to-back situation against division rivals in the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens.
With that kind of time off, Matthews can recover from something that may have been lingering. Dreger believes Matthews has been fighting the upper-body injury and it may have forced his slow start in goal scoring.
“This issue that Auston Matthews is currently dealing with,” Dreger said. “Has been something that he has been fighting through a bit.”
Dreger couldn’t exactly pinpoint when the injury occurred, but Matthews has been uncharacteristically slow to start the year. He has just five goals in the opening month of the year with only one power play goal on the year.
The Maple Leafs power play as a whole has been terrible to start the year, sitting at 10%, good for 31st in the NHL. Matthews is usually a key to power play production, but something has been holding him back.
Matthews is likely only out for this one game against Boston, but it was a necessary move to get him healthy and possibly back on track.
This article first appeared on Breakaway on SI and was syndicated with permission.
