Breaking: Babcock provides update on Matthews injury.

The Toronto Maple Leafs faced off against the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night in what turned out to be a rather nasty affair between the two sides who had just played each other a few days earlier. 

Earlier in the week the Toronto Maple Leafs had walked away with the victory by a margin of 4 - 2 but on Saturday it seemed like the Winnipeg Jets were out for revenge. The game not only had more of a playoff atmosphere to it than the first game of the week did, but the Jets would also jump out to an early lead as they looked to tie up the series at one game a piece. It was with the Winnipeg Jets up 1 goal to nothing that disaster struck for the Maple Leafs however. 

In the opening minutes of the game's second period the Maple Leafs and the Jets were playing some 4 on 4 hockey as each team had sent a player back into the penalty box. It was at that moment that Leafs superstar Auston Matthews attempted to make a big play after he stripped Adam Lowry of the puck along the boards and immediately began to skate hard towards the Jets net, cutting through the middle of the ice in the process. Unfortunately for Matthews however Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba saw the play coming from a mile away and lined up the young Leafs forward for a big hit. 

The body check caught Matthews flush and it was a clean, hard, devastating body check that left the Leafs forward in a great deal of pain. The check appeared to be shoulder to shoulder and the reaction from Matthews indicated that he had suffered some type of injury to that part of his body. Matthews quickly made his way around the Jets net and back towards the Leafs bench, hunched over in agony all the way and favoring his shoulder in the process. 

Matthews of course has had 2 significant shoulder injuries during his career already and that made this incident especially concerning for the Leafs, and after the game head coach Mike Babcock appeared to confirm the bad news. It is indeed a shoulder injury and although Babcock did not provide any details, his prognosis did not sound good.

"And we’ll look at on Monday. .. He’s not ready right away for sure"

We likely won't know more until the Leafs reevaluate Matthews early next week,

[pub]