The Toronto Maple Leafs are doing a disservice to themselves by allowing Auston Matthews to play in the Four Nations Face-Off in a few weeks.
When Alex Pietrangelo decided to withdraw his name from the Four Nations Face-Off, depsite being healthy enough to play in the NHL, I thought this would be a domino affect for the rest of the NHL. However, that doesn't seem to be the case for Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews, who's been dealing with a nagging injury pretty much all season.
Can we all take a second to remember that Matthews went to Germany earlier this season to visit a sports medicine physician and we still don't know what happened? All we know is that Matthews suffered an upper-body injury that kept him out of action, and that he hasn't quite been himself this year.
Craig Berube mentioned that this injury isn't related to the wrist injury that he suffered a few years ago, so that's good, but he's cleary fighting through something right now.
If you're the Leafs, wouldn't you rather have Matthews take a long break and get ready for a playoff run? If there's even a five percent chance that he can agrivate his injury more by playing in the Four Nations Face-Off, it's not really worth him going, although I can understand why he would want to play.
Matthews Probably Should Have Skipped Four Nations Face-Off
This is going to be the first time in Auston Matthews and many other NHL superstars career's that they'll be able to represent their country at the highest-level, although this tournament is a joke. We all know that this is just a four team random event that doesn't mean anything.
This is not the Olympics, nor even if the World Championships for that matter, because there are only four teams playing in this event - without Russia and Czechia it's not much of a best-on-best tournement.
I can understand why Matthews wants to play, and I guess at the end of the day, it's his say on what he wants to do, but the Leafs will only be able to go on a long playoff-run is healthy. You can tell me that the team's record is actually pretty good without him in the line-up, but I'd rather have Matthews on the ice in the dying moments of a tied game than anyone else on the roster.
I'll be pumped to see Matthews vs. McDavid on a Championship Final, but if he ends up worsening his injury because of this stupid tournament, I'm going to be very upset.
I really wish the Leafs would step and tell him to stay home and rest, but it doesn't sound like that's going to happen unfortunately.