Toronto Maple Leafs: Auston Matthews out against the Minnesota Wild
The Toronto Maple Leafs will be without Auston Matthews when they take on the Minnesota Wild with an undisclosed injury.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been fortunate when it comes to their luck with injuries this season but as that is slowly changing as Auston Matthews will be sitting out tonight’s game.
#Leafs have been awfully lucky with the injury bug. Just 4 man-games lost this season, so far, after nine played in all 82 games last season, including Matthews.
— Terry Koshan 🇺🇦 (@koshtorontosun) November 8, 2017
After Frederik Gauthier was called up by the Leafs it was apparent that the injury to Matthews was not going away. When asked at practice what the is ailing the star center, head coach Mike Babcock said it was an upper-body issue.
Hopefully Matthews’ injury is not a major concern as the team is calling him day-to-day. With a back-to-back coming up against the Boston Bruins and the Wild struggling, this looks like a good chance to give Matthews a chance to rest as they cannot afford to have him miss a long period of time.
The 20-year old leafs the Leafs with 10 goals and 19 points in 16 games this season, playing the most minute among Leafs forwards at 18:24 a night. After practice, Babcock said that Nazem Kadri, Patrick Marleau, Tyler Bozak and Dominic Moore will start at center with Matthews out.
#Leafs lines at practice:
— Kristen Shilton (@kristen_shilton) November 7, 2017
Brown-Bozak-Marner
Martin-Moore-Leivo
Komarov-Kadri-Nylander
JvR-Marleau-Hyman
Gauthier
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It will be interesting to see how William Nylander plays with Kadri given how Babcock has not been impressed with his game recently.
However, with Matthews out the Leafs will need to rely on other forwards to pick up the slack like Mitch Marner, Bozak and Connor Brown who lined up together in practice.
“We have guys that can jump in and play,” defenseman Morgan Rielly said to reporters. “Our depth is a proud point for this team so we’ll be oK.”
If the team struggles with Matthews out, Toronto will be in a tough position going forward with a lack of depth in the AHL for the team to look at for solutions.
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What do you think of the Leafs chances with Matthews out of the lineup? Is this injury concerning? Let us know in the comments below.