{"id":455324,"date":"2024-11-05T10:48:18","date_gmt":"2024-11-05T15:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=455324"},"modified":"2024-11-05T10:48:18","modified_gmt":"2024-11-05T15:48:18","slug":"toronto-maple-leafs-captain-out-with-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/11\/05\/toronto-maple-leafs-captain-out-with-injury\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto Maple Leafs Captain Out With Injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/10\/30\/toronto-maple-leafs-line-adjustments-proven-effective\/\" target=\"_self\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> will be without one of their top players for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/11\/05\/nhl-predictions-november-5-w-boston-bruins-vs-toronto-maple-leafs\/\" target=\"_self\">Tuesday night&#8217;s game against the Boston Bruins<\/a>. The team announced that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/m\/matthau01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-05_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Auston Matthews<\/a> is out with an upper-body injury. This injury is considered day-to-day and the Leafs will hope it&#8217;s nothing more than that.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Maple Leafs F Auston Matthews is not available for tonight\u2019s game and is day-to-day (upper body).<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Leafs PR (@LeafsPR) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LeafsPR\/status\/1853818357796962781?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 5, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Matthews Out Short-Term<\/h2>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/11\/03\/nhl-rumours-toronto-maple-leafs-likely-not-done-making-trades\/\" target=\"_self\">Maple Leafs<\/a> aren&#8217;t a team with a lot of depth at the centre position. Without Matthews, Toronto&#8217;s next best centre to slot in on the top line is 34-year-old <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/t\/tavarjo01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-05_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">John Tavares<\/a>, who is actually having a great season to his respect. It&#8217;s one thing to miss a key player like they have with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/n\/nylanwi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-05_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">William Nylander<\/a> when he had the flu. But, it&#8217;s another thing when it&#8217;s your franchise player and first-line centreman. Also, this injury doesn&#8217;t come at an ideal time. The Leafs have four straight divisional games coming up and they need results. There isn&#8217;t much that separates the Leafs and their <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/08\/24\/toronto-defence-comparison\/\" target=\"_self\">divisional rivals<\/a>, including <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/11\/04\/back-to-back-champ-takes-his-experience-to-____________\/\" target=\"_self\">Boston<\/a> who are just one point behind them. The Leafs are 35-19-2 without Matthews in the lineup.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a delicate time for the Maple Leafs and coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hockey-reference.com\/players\/b\/berubcr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-11-05_hr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Craig Berube<\/a> will need other players to step up sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<h3>The Captain&#8217;s Season So Far<\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/19\/matthews-pursuit-of-greatness-season-ages\/\" target=\"_self\">Matthews<\/a> has not had the start to the season he&#8217;s wanted by any means. While he has rounded out his game and has <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/10\/15\/toronto-maple-leafs-stars-have-something-other-stars-dont-have\/\" target=\"_self\">become a great two-way player<\/a>, offensively he has not been the same. After 13 games this season, Matthews has five goals and 11 points. It&#8217;s a solid start but for the three-time Rocket Richard Trophy winner, it&#8217;s nothing to write home about. There were suspicions about <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2024\/04\/30\/when-individual-is-greater-than-team\/\" target=\"_self\">Matthews being hurt<\/a> given his play on the ice. He hasn&#8217;t been nearly as dominant as he had in the past. He still gets some good opportunities, however, he&#8217;s been missing the net more often than usual and that&#8217;s not Matthews.<\/p>\n<p>The Maple Leafs will hope to have their captain back soon.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: Brace Hemmelgarn-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Toronto Maple Leafs will be without one of their top players for Tuesday night&#8217;s game against the Boston Bruins. The team announced that Auston Matthews is out with an upper-body injury. This injury is considered day-to-day and the Leafs will hope it&#8217;s nothing more than that. Maple Leafs F Auston Matthews is not available [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5141,"featured_media":455330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18,4547,6671,34,4548],"tags":[228,90,375,499,5868,5951,230],"class_list":["post-455324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leafs","category-hockey","category-injuries","category-news","category-nhl","tag-auston-matthews","tag-boston-bruins","tag-craig-berube","tag-john-tavares","tag-toronto-maple-leafs-analysis","tag-toronto-maple-leafs-news","tag-william-nylander"],"modified_by":"Andre Leal","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455324"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455324\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}