The Auston Matthews Injury is starting to get concerning

The Toronto Maple Leafs Captain, best player, and best player in the over 100 year history of their franchise, missed his sixth straight game last night.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have released no information about their best player. The only thing anyone knows is that it's an "upper body" injury.

The Leafs are clearly erroring on the side of caution here, which is to be lauded. I would just say that given Matthews status, the Leafs should be a little more forthcoming with when we can expect them back.

The team is doing well enough without him, but that doesn't change the fact that the entire season hinges on Auston Matthews health, and as such, the fans shouldn't be kept in the dark just so the team can get some kind of dubious competitive advantage.

Toronto Maple Leafs and Auston Matthews

The Toronto Maple Leafs only have one game next week, so it makes sense to be cautious with Matthews. It's just kind of weird that he skated, was listed as day to day, and then stopped skating and took a week off.

Fortunately, the team has played decently and gotten good results while he's been out, and more importantly, the power-play and Mitch Marner have come alive without him, possibly teaching the Leafs a lesson that those outside the organzation have long pointed out.

Essentially, Marner does better without Matthews because he is a franchise player in his own right and shouldn't play a subserviant role.

Whether it's the power-play or 5v5, the Leafs are a much stronger team when they split up their two best players.

Auston Matthews makes everyone around him better, but there is a point of diminishing returns. For example, Marner is so good on his own that Matthews doesn't make him any better. But anyone less than a Marner-level player is going to see improvement.

Therefore the math insists that they be split up: if you pair them, they can upgrade one player - for instance Kniews, Hyman or Bunting. But if you split them up, they would each improve two players, for a total of four players getting better.

There is no way combining the two franchise players can make up for the fact that three extra players see improvement in their games when they are split up.

Take this a step further and play Nylander, Marner and. Matthews on different lines and you have a team that basically has a franchise player on the ice continuously.

In conclusion, Matthews likely won't play for another week at the earliest, which figures because I just acquried him in my hockey pool. However, the Leafs would be well advised to tell their fans the nature of his injury and to keep in mind, when he comes back, that they should never play him with Marner.