Auston Matthews DESTROYS Steve Simmons during post-game comments.

I think it is safe to say that Auston Matthews did not appreciate the admittedly excellent investigative reporting that was done by controversial Toronto sports columnist Steve Simmons.

On Sunday following a frustrating loss in which they were shutout by the Columbus Blue Jackets, the aforementioned Auston Matthews was fielding questions from members of the media when suddenly Simmonds directed a question in his direction. Matthews however chose not to answer the question and instead slammed Simmons in front of his fellow reporters, telling him in no uncertain terms that he felt what Simmons had done to him crossed an ethical line. 

"First of all it is unfortunate that I am getting a question from you at this point Steve but I just wanted to say that I really didn't appreciate the article you wrote about me a couple of months ago," said Matthews. "I thought it was very unethical to be honest." 

For those not familiar with the history between these two, Simmons went public a few months ago now with information regarding Matthews and a positive test for COVID-19. The National Hockey League was not reporting the names of any of their players who had tested positive at the time, and continue to maintain that policy at the time of this writing, however Simmons was able to dig up the information regarding the Matthews' test and went public with it, outing Matthews as someone who had contracted the deadly virus in the process. 

Now personally I don't think naming people who contract COVID-19, a highly contagious and dangerous virus, is a big issue and I have even heard good arguments to suggest that it is in the interest of public health for public figures to reveal when they could potentially put others at risk. In spite of that however Matthews' medical records are his own and it is clear that he felt this was a violation of his privacy and unlike myself he likely feels that revealing the information was not in the public interest. 

You can check out the full media availability from Matthews and teammate Morgan Rielly below, the Simmonds answer is around the 50 second mark.