The Leafs used Matthews' roster spot to activate Dewar as the team continues to navigate a roster crunch.
Auston Matthews has been officially shut down for games against the Detroit Red Wings and Montreal Canadiens after the Toronto Maple Leafs placed the star center on injured reserve (IR) retroactive to Nov. 3.
By making the move, Matthews is ineligible to play for a minimum of seven days. As a result, he will not play in any of the Leafs' home games this weekend against the Detroit Red Wings or Montreal Canadiens.
Matthews missed Toronto's 4-0 win against the Boston Bruins on Tuesday with an upper-body injury. He has not taken the ice since he was in the lineup on Sunday in a 2-1 overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild.
With Matthews on IR, the Leafs opened up a spot on their 23-man roster and activated forward Connor Dewar from his bonafide long-term injury conditioning loan and placed him on the active roster.
On Thursday, Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube said he felt Dewar and Jan Hakanpaa (on LTIR with a knee injury) could benefit with more games with the Toronto Marlies. Now that the Leafs have roster room for Dewar, they felt he didn't need those games anymore.
The Leafs are in the middle of a roster crunch. Toronto has the salary-cap space to activate both of Dewar and Hakanpaa, per Puckpedia.com but there wasn't any roster room. Even if roster space is created for Hakanpaa, the Leafs will have to figure out what happens with Calle Jarnkrok, who is recovering from a suspected sports hernia. The player was on the ice again working on his skating before his club took the ice for the morning skate on Friday.
