Auston Matthews officially out for Leafs with uncertain timeline

The Toronto Maple Leafs are back in action tonight at home against the visiting Nashville Predators, but they'll be without one of the top pieces of their roster in the form of goal scoring forward Auston Matthews. 

According to head coach Sheldon Keefe, Matthews is dealing with a "lingering" injury, but is showing improvement. 

In the meantime, the Leafs have called up forward Bobby McCann from the American Hockey League affiliate Toronto Marlies, and he'll be making his NHL debut tonight on a line with Alex Kerfoot and David Kampf.

"Just go out and work," Keefe said of what he's looking for in McCann's debut. "Any time you have a guy playing in his first game, you try not to overwhelm him too much. There is enough going on as it is."

"For him, he is a guy who is at his best when he is moving his feet and skating. He is a big, strong guy. He has found a way to make his mark very quickly at the AHL level. He is an older guy coming out of college and all of those kinds of things, but he doesn’t have a great deal of experience at the pro level. That didn’t faze him in adjusting to the AHL level. He has now had a camp and an exhibition season with us at the NHL level."

Here are tonight's anticipated line combinations: 

#19 Calle Järnkrok – #91 John Tavares – #16 Mitch Marner
#58 Michael Bunting – #88 William Nylander – #47 Pierre Engvall
#15 Alex Kerfoot – #64 David Kämpf – #74 Bobby McMann
#12 Zach Aston-Reese – #29 Pontus Holmberg – #20 Dryden Hunt

#44 Morgan Rielly – #3 Justin Holl
#55 Mark Giordano – #25 Conor Timmins
#38 Rasmus Sandin – #37 Timothy Liljegren

Starter: #30 Matt Murray
#35 Ilya Samsonov