Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews to Miss Second Straight Game

The Toronto Maple Leafs will be without Auston Matthews for the second straight game.

The Toronto Maple Leafs were able to defeat the Edmonton Oilers without Matthews on Sunday. Tonight, they’ll be against the Philadelphia Flyers and looking to do the same.  Amazingly, the Leafs are 5-0 so far without their best player.

You’d think that would make the odds for a victory tonight pretty long, but with the way Andersen and McElhinney have played lately, I wouldn’t be betting against them.  That said, i don’t think many people who visit Editor in Leaf would bother with betting against the team, but then again, Leafs fans are nothing if not masochistic.

The Matthews injury is somewhat mysterious.  The consensus seems to be that he was hurt the other night when he ran into Rielly against Pittsburgh.  The Leafs, however, have been silent on that front.  How precisely Matthews was injured, or what part of the body (upper, lower, other?) was injured remains a mystery.

Perhaps that collision was just something we noticed and attribute the injury to. And even if that was the cause, did it aggravate his injury that caused him to miss four games earlier this year?  Or is it something new?

The only way to know for sure is if Matthews or a member of the Leafs management was to tell us, and you can guess what the odds of that happening are.

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Nylander at Centre?

If Auston Matthews isn’t playing, that leaves an opening down the middle.  On Sunday it was filled – quite admirably – by William Nylander.  We have been advocating Nylander as a centre for months now, and it was great to finally see him get in there.  Even better to see him pick up a point and perform well, despite his having not lined up in the middle since the year before last.

The ascension of Nylander as a centre would give the Leafs arguably the best 1-2-3 centre combination in the NHL. It would also allow the Leafs to move Tyler Bozak and his +$4 million dollar cap hit.   The Leafs are currently at the upper limit of the salary cap, but do have $4.6 available to them , per Cap Friendly, because they have two players on the long-term IR.

Were they to trade Bozak, they’d have over $8 million to spend, meaning the team could go out and acquire a true impact player.

Next: Catch Up on All Your Marlies and Leafs Prospect News

So there is a slight upside to Matthews taking a game off, and it’s obviously better to be safe than sorry in terms of rushing him back.  The Leafs have fared OK without him, and we can only hope it’s nothing long term.  And I don’t think it is, because I’m certain that I heard Babcock say yesterday that he expected him to play tonight.  Even though Matthews won’t play, I certainly take what Babcock said as a good sign.

Stats from naturalhattrick.com