Auston Matthews may have been playing through a serious injury in the playoffs
The Leafs did it again. They allowed an inferior opponent to get the best of them, only this time, instead of it happening in the regular season, they allowed it to happen in the playoffs. Similarly to what happened in 2021 in the Leafs/Habs series, a Florida Panthers team who barely managed to limp into the playoffs took the Leafs to task, eliminating them in 5 games, winning all 3 games in Toronto.
One of the biggest storylines of the series was the near complete invisibility of Auston Matthews. The two-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner and reigning MVP was held to just 2 points in the series and had not scored in the final 3 games, which is highly uncharacteristic of one of the best goal scorers of this generation.
Last night, during the handshake line, as Auston Matthews lined up and took his glove off of his right hand, he was wearing a brace over his wrist, which could indicate that he may have been playing through an injury, which may have interfered with his shooting accuracy.
The wrist that Matthews had braced last night was the same wrist that he had surgically repaired last offseason. As you'll recall, Matthews missed the first few games of this season as he worked on rehabbing the wrist following surgery.
Both this series against Florida and last series against Tampa were very physical and it's not out of the realm of possibility that Matthews may have re-injured his surgically repaired wrist at some point. There's also the possibility that he was never quite 100%. After all, he did manage just 40 goals this season, just one year after scoring 60 with relative ease.
At the end of the day, the Leafs lost this series and there are no excuses for how poorly Matthews had played in it. The Panthers were the 17th placed team in the regular season, while the Leafs finished 4th. This one was a huge missed opportunity for the Leafs to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals and Matthews' poor showing was a huge reason why the team came up short.
| POLL | ||
MAI 13 | 1535 ANSWERS Auston Matthews may have been playing through a serious injury in the playoffs Do you believe Matthews was injured for the entire Panthers/Leafs series? | ||
| Yes | 795 | 51.8 % |
| No | 374 | 24.4 % |
| Who cares? Just win.. | 366 | 23.8 % |
| List of polls | ||
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