Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews Back Tonight vs Bruins

The Toronto Maple Leafs will play the Boston Bruins tonight, but who cares about that – the only thing that matters is that Auston Matthews will be back.

The Toronto Maple Leafs franchise player, and (let’s be honest) the owner of the world’s worst facial hair, Auston Matthews, has missed the last two games with an undisclosed injury.

If I had to guess, I would suggest his surgically repaired wrist is giving him troubles, leading to a decrease in total shots and shot quality, and explaining a reduction in goals in points this season.

However, I won’t guess, because I would most likely be wrong.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Auston Matthews

Matthews is on pace for 40 goals and 90 points, while the last time I looked it up he was among the NHL scoring leaders at 5v5 by both totals and on a per-minute basis.

So likely his totals are down because last year they were super-charged and this year he’s not getting so lucky. Could this be the wrist? Sure. But it could also just be random luck, and that is bolstered by the fact that he is still arguably the best 5v5 player in the league, and likely wouldn’t be if this injury was affecting his game to that degree.

Unfortunately, the NHL does not release any injury information and I am forced to speculate.  For all I know his injury occurred while wrestling Marner for the team’s last can of Axe Body Spray.

Another reason that this injury probably hasn’t been affecting him too much and is not a big deal is that they are letting him play despite having no reason to.

Matthews could take a month off to heal, and the Toronto Maple Leafs will still mostly likely be playing Tampa Bay in the playoffs.  Matthews missed two games, they went 1-1, but it took the stupidest non-goal call in NHL history to make that happen, and they should easily have skated to their fourth win in a row on Thursday.

So, the fact that the Toronto Maple Leafs would allow Matthews to return to the lineup after only two games of rest indicates to me that this isn’t too serious of an injury.  With Matthews in the lineup, the Leafs are the NHL’s best team. Without him, they might drop all the way to third.  It is the middle of January, and while I would like him to play every game, the rest of this season doesn’t matter.

Without or without Matthews, the Leafs are probably going to finish in second place and play Tampa.

Just have him ready for the Playoffs is all I care about.