Once again, the battle between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Boston Bruins in the first round of the Playoffs didn’t disappoint, well aside from Leafs’ players, fans, and staff. It was a fast-paced matchup but tight coverage on both sides meant goals weren’t easy to come by. For the Maple Leafs, their best players needed to be on top of their game, but as luck would have it, that wasn’t the case for Auston Matthews.
What Made Matthews Miss Game 5 & 6
As Auston Matthews revealed talking to the media this morning, the Leafs’ sniper felt very sick after Game 2 of the series, but he battled on for Game 3 and he was still trying to recover in Game 4 when he received a “weird hit” which caused him to leave the game and to miss Game 5 and Game 6. In Sportsnet’s footage from this morning’s press conference, the Arizona native explained:
Yeah, I mean obviously, it was really, really tough. I got really sick after Game 2 and you know, played in Game 3 obviously going through that. I was kind of trying to recover going into Game 4 and took a weird hit and you know, I couldn’t go any longer. That’s as detailed as I’m going to get into it. Obviously, it was tough, it was really frustrating, and it sucks. It was killing me to watch… but I’m proud of the guys and how they fought and climbed back into this series. I was fortunate to get to play in Game 7. I just tried to go out there, and give it my all…obviously, it’s disappointing and frustrating to be here today.
What was the illness exactly? When pressed on and asked if it was the flu, Matthews simply answered “Yeah, something like that.”
Related: Matthews Out For Game 6, More Than Illness Going On Here
It looks like we’ll never know what kind of illness was afflicting him, but I think the “food poisoning” thesis can be set aside, because if that was the case, he would just have gone ahead and said that.
Losing Matthews Has Surprising Effect
Interestingly, the Maple Leafs won both of the games they had to play without Matthews to tie the series 3-3 and lost Game 7 with him back in the lineup, something tells me this will be part of the narrative this summer. Even before Game 7, consensus of online discussion was that the Maple Leafs were playing better as a team without Matthews than with him.
Is that Matthews’ fault? I don’t think so, but when he’s in the lineup, teammates are tempted to rely on him, and unconsciously think “Auston will do it.” When he’s not able to play though, they all know they have to step up, so they perform like a real team and not like “Matthews’ team.”
This is something that will be addressed internally, like a great many things in Toronto this summer. The market has always been known as a pressure cooker, but with this being the fourth elimination by the Bruins in as many first-round series, the status quo is no longer acceptable. There’s got to be a limit to the number of times an organization can say “We believe in this team and are confident they’ve got what it takes to win the Stanley Cup.”
Do not misunderstand me here — I’m not saying trade Matthews since the team plays like a real team when he’s not dressed, but I am saying it’s time to dismantle the core. Last offseason, they decided to add grit and physicality by signing Ryan Reaves, but it’s not what they need. They need their leaders — the talented guys who can score — to be more gritty and physical. Picking up Max Domi was a step in the right direction, but they need more players who can both score and handle the physicality of the playoffs. How are they going to do that? That’s a story for another time, but it certainly won’t be easy.