The Toronto Maple Leafs made a major announcement on Monday morning regarding the health of start forward Auston Matthews. The Maple Leafs' department of public relations revealed that the superstar center would miss at least the next four weeks of action, that is to say a bare minimum of 14 regular season games, as a result of the injury that he suffered on Saturday night against the Winnipeg Jets.
Matthews was injured when he attempted to drive towards the Winnipeg Jets net in the opening minutes of the second period on Saturday night, only to be intercepted on his way there by Winnipeg Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba. Trouba had a perfect read on the play and caught Matthews on the way to the net with a huge body check. To Matthews' credit he was able to maintain his balance in spite of the violent impact of the hit, but it was clear that he had been badly hurt on the play nonetheless.
Matthews would quickly leave the ice while grimacing and pain and never returned to the game after heading back into the Maple Leafs locker room. Since Saturday we've heard from a number of members in the Leafs organization including head coach Mike Babcock as well as from a number of Matthews' teammates like Mitch Marner and John Tavares, but one man we have not heard from since the injury is from Matthews' himself.
On Monday following the announcement regarding his injury Matthews spoke to the media for the first time since his injury and as you would expect he was asked to share his opinion on the hit itself. To his credit in spite of the fact that he was seriously injured on the play Matthews didn't have a single word to say about Jacob Trouba, and in fact he appeared to praise the Jets defenseman for his form on the hit.
"He took the body, which is what you’re supposed to do, and caught me on a weird angle," said Matthews.
I haven't heard a single complaint regarding the Trouba hit so it's good to see that Matthews himself has accepted that it was just an unfortunate reality of playing the game of hockey at the NHL level.
