The backs of the Toronto Maple Leafs are facing the wall. They are now down 3-1 in their first-round series against the Boston Bruins and will need to win tonight in order to salvage their season after a dismal showing in a 3-1 loss in Game 4. However, it will not be simple to do so.
There is a chance Auston Matthews ends up missing tonight’s game, though that has not been confirmed. The 26-year-old superstar was able to play two periods in Game 4 before leaving the game, despite the Leafs’ earlier claims that he was suffering from an illness. However, those claims have since been seriously contested. This strange situation is making far more headlines than they should right now.
Leafs Disguising All Wounds
William Nylander, a 27-year-old who had played in the final game of the regular season, was oddly absent from the starting lineup in Game 1, which was the biggest story for the Leafs as their series got underway. Rumors began to circulate after the Leafs failed to provide an explanation for their actions, and some suggested that he might have been a healthy scratch after a few careless plays in their regular-season finale.
When it was revealed that Nylander would also miss Game 2, any rumors of a possible healthy scratch were promptly dashed. Even though it was obvious that was not the problem, nobody knew what was going on because the media kept asking the team and publishing articles about possible causes for his absence.
The mystery was eventually unraveled by Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, who revealed that Nylander was experiencing migraines as a result of a head injury sustained late in the season. Since then, that has been verified, which has helped to defuse the situation that had become a media circus. Nylander was able to suit up for Game 4, but if the Leafs had just been forthright and honest from the beginning, it would have helped to avoid what ended up being an extremely needless distraction for a team that was already extremely fragile.
After what happened with Nylander, one would think the Leafs would have learned their lesson, but Matthews is experiencing the exact same situation. A report of Matthews’ illness surfaced after the third game of the series. That may have been the case, but there is clearly more going on than that.
As previously stated, Matthews was only allowed to participate in two quarters of Game 4 before being substituted out. Video footage from the second period appeared to show him having difficulty moving around the ice, leading many to speculate that the Leafs were hiding an injury.
Matthews skated on the ice this morning before practice, but he was only out for five minutes. Head coach Sheldon Keefe’s refusal to respond when asked if his star forward was experiencing anything more than a medical condition seemed to confirm what was already obvious—that there was more going on than just a sickness.
Distractions: Final Leaf Requirement
This seems like the final chance the “core four” of Matthews, Nylander, Mitch Marner, and John Tavares will have to show that they are capable of making a deep run, considering all of their playoff disappointments with this current group of players. Given the circumstances, they were already under a lot of pressure going into the playoffs this year, and this extra noise has only made things worse.
No team tries to outright conceal the fact that any of its players are injured during the playoffs, but they also do not usually reveal the precise nature of the injuries any of them are dealing with. If the Leafs had simply acknowledged that Nylander and Matthews were both dealing with undisclosed injuries, the team would have been far less distracted. Rather, as the Leafs stand on the verge of elimination once more, it appears to be the topic of conversation among all.
