Dave Litman
The devastating knee-on-knee hit that ended Auston Matthews’ season has stirred up all sorts of controversy around the NHL. On the controversial five-game suspension that multi-time offender Radko Gudas received, and on the NHL’s Department of Player Safety itself. Matthews’ agent and now even Connor McDavid have weighed in on its latest controversial decision.
But for the Toronto Maple Leafs, and Matthews himself, the big questions now are more existential for the future of the player’s health, and his future in Toronto.
Insider Elliotte Friedman brings us the latest on Matthews and his knee:
The Maple Leafs and Auston Matthews are hopeful right now that he won’t need surgery. They won’t know for probably a week or two, but they are hopeful he won’t need it. The key thing here is, even if he does need surgery, there isn’t any concern at this time that it would take him into next season (to recover).
How will this deflating season impact Auston Matthews’ future with Leafs?
But when it comes to the Maple Leafs’ reset/retool/rebuild or whatever R-word you want to call what they’ll be going through this summer, Friedman suggests that all this time away from the rink will give Matthews time to think about all that, and where he fits within it.
What this also allows Matthews to do is start the clock on how he feels about things. A lot has happened in a very short time in Toronto from the time they last asked him how he felt about things at the beginning of February. Since he’s not gonna play now, he’ll have time to think about it, and they’ll have time to talk to him about it. And I think sometime over the next couple of months, we’re going to get a better idea of how everybody feels about the overall future of Matthews and the Maple Leafs.
And while the captain hasn’t yet responded to the other big talking point around all this—how there was no teammate on the ice coming to his defense after violent take-down at the hands of Gudas—Friedman adds that that will at least impact the team in other ways.
“There’s no question in my mind that, internally, it will have ramifications on the future and the construction of the team… There were words like ’embarrassed’ and ‘apoplectic’ about how everyone felt about that situation.”
Matthews finished the 2025-26 season with the worst numbers of his 10-year NHL career. Just 27 goals (he had 69 two years ago) and 53 points in 60 games.
