Insider Questions Captain America Auston Matthews’ Health as Playoffs Against Florida Show Glaring Failure

What has been up with Auston Matthews? The Maple Leafs scorer has gone from scoring 33 goals in the regular season with the Toronto Maple Leafs to scoring a solid ‘0’ with them in the playoffs against the Panthers. Despite Toronto doing pretty well right now, having made it to round 2, they even had Florida, the current reigning champs, looking a bit worried there for a second. Fans and analysts are wondering what is going on with the star captain.

On a recent episode of 32 Thoughts with Kyle Bukauskas and Elliotte Friedman, the hosts discuss what things are looking like for Auston Matthews as the Leafs head into game 5 of this tied series. Though Friedman pointed out that Matthews’ high percentage of net misses, might not necessarily be a bad thing, comparing it to a season Steve Nash had in the NBA, Friedman recalled that anyone who was making that many shots will undoubtedly have some misses, but it was the ‘weirdness’ of some of Matthews misses that were worrying and indicative of a possible injury, with Friedman saying,

“I’m just wondering how injured he is, in the sense that it’s one of these things you kind of wonder about at the end of the year, whenever that is, you’re going to find out that this guy couldn’t shoot the puck like he likes to. Yeah, I mean, you got to remember too, like, they scored 13 goals the first three games of this series, so I understand, like, it’s all the timing of it, right Like, the shutout out comes—that’s what it is it’s timing Yes, it is timing.”

Will Auston Matthews be able to hold his own despite injury rumors in game 5 against an enraged Florida?

So, there’s a lot on the table right now. Toronto’s captain Auston Matthews may or may not be injured, and Florida has been grievously irked with Max Domi having placed a solid hit on their captain Aleksander Barkov in the last 6 seconds of game four, and he probably won’t have to be suspended for game 5, so is it safe for Matthews to even be on the ice when it is this thin (metaphorically speaking)?

Not only did Auston Matthews miss the morning skate with his team before game 4 of the round 2 series, but he also missed an earlier practice session in the playoffs. When asked about it, Matthews played it off as if it wasn’t so unusual, saying, “Everybody’s grinding and playing hard right now, so it’s not really something that’s, I don’t know, it’s not a big deal.” Which would be totally understandable had he been scoring the way he usually does or scoring at all!

Furthermore, Florida is going to be going for the gullet in game 5, with Matthew Tkachuk even having ‘warned’ William Nylander after Barkov took that hit. This team of known aggressors isn’t going to stand by idly after their captain was boarded like that, so if Auston Matthews is injured, he’ll need to be extra careful when this game comes along, as game 6 is going to be the critical one.