The Maple Leafs will welcome back a key piece of their forward tonight. Center Auston Matthews told reporters including NHL.com’s Dave McCarthy that he will be in the lineup against Boston, meaning Toronto will be activating him off injured reserve.
The 27-year-old has missed the last six games after reaggravating the upper-body injury forced him to miss nine games back in November. At that time, he went to Germany to be reassessed and has since acknowledged that the injury is something that may linger for the rest of the season.
He’s expected to reclaim his spot on the top line alongside wingers Matthew Knies and Mitch Marner and intends to play both games over the weekend over being eased back in.
In between his stints on IR, the captain has been relatively productive though not to the level he’s accustomed to. Matthews has 11 goals and 12 assists in 24 games so far this season, good for fourth on the team in scoring despite being out for 15 games already. However, it’s a far cry from the type of per-game output that saw him record at least 60 goals and 106 points in two of the last three seasons although the Maple Leafs aren’t as much of a high-scoring team under new head coach Craig Berube as they’d been in past years with Sheldon Keefe behind the bench.
Toronto has an open spot on its roster following yesterday’s reassignment of defenseman Marshall Rifai to the Marlies so they won’t need to make any moves to bring Matthews back onto the open roster.