Placed on injured reserve November 8th, Auston Matthews travelled to Germany to see a specialist to help him out during his recovery.
While he did not return to the lineup on Wednesday as many Leaf fans had hoped, Matthews is expected to return on Saturday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Ahead of his anticipated return, a highly controversial Toronto Sun reporter, Steve Simmons, has gone public with a speculative report, revealing the unconfirmed nature of Matthews' injury based on the doctor he saw while overseas.
Simmons revealed that Matthews visited Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt and that his sources claimed that Matthews was dealing with a back or wrist injury.
Simmons also emphatically noted that Müller-Wohlfahrt is a large advocate of the drug Actovegin which can be used for soft-tissue injuries and has been banned by the World Anti Doping Agency, but is not on the NHL's list of performance enhancing drugs.
This would not be the first time that Simmons has gone out of the way to reveal health information on Matthews as he revealed a positive COVID-19 test during the 2021 playoffs, which led to Matthews calling him out during a media availability.
With the Leafs practicing Friday, Simmons should expect some sort of backlash from Matthews and other members of the team if he is present during their post-practice media availability -- and on the off-chance that Simmons is not in Tampa, you can expect that there will be hell to pay when the players next encounter the Toronto Sun reporter.