Dave Litman
The final impact of Radko Gudas’ brutal knee-on-knee hit on Auston Matthews has been revealed. The Toronto Maple Leafs captain has officially undergone surgery to repair his MCL, the team announced on Thurdsay.
The team release said that Matthews had successful MCL repair surgery in New York City on Thursday. His recovery time is about 12 weeks. That timeline takes us to late June. That would give him most of the summer to get back into hockey shape and be ready for training camp in September.
It was only three days ago that it was reported that the Leafs & Matthews were still hoping to avoid surgery. But more medical opinions have obviously changed the calculus on that.
Matthews was injured and knocked out of the rest of the 2025-26 campaign earlier this month. Anaheim Ducks defenseman Gudas, aka The Butcher, took the Leafs captain down with an ugly and illegal knee-on-knee hit.
Gudas was handed a controversial five-game suspension. That has sparked discussion around the league about whether the NHL Department of Player Safety’s methods of handing out punishment need to be revisited. Matthews’ agent Judd Moldaver called the suspension “laughable and preposterous.”
All of this time off now will give Matthews and the Leafs management plenty of time to reflect on where things go moving forward with the captain and the franchise.
“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,” said insider Elliotte Friedman.
