Matthews will miss at least one month with a shoulder injury

Toronto Maple Leafs centre Auston Matthews will miss at least four weeks with a left shoulder injury and will be placed on injured reserve on Monday. 

Matthews was forced to leave Saturday’s game vs. the Winnipeg Jets after taking a heavy hit from defenseman Jacob Trouba. 

The third-year centre got off to a ridiculous start to the season, scoring 10 goals with six assists (16 points) in his first seven games, but was held pointless in his last four before getting hurt. The Matthews injury forces head coach Mike Babcock to make significant changes to the Maple Leafs’ forward lines. Kasperi Kapanen, who was playing so well with Matthews, will move up to the first line with  John Tavares

and Zach Hyman. Kapanen will also move to the top powerplay, continuing to add to his fantasy value.  That bumps Mitch Marner down to the second line, where Nazem Kadri will replace Matthews alongside Patrick Marleau. Marleau, Kadri and Marner have played nearly 400 minutes together at 5v5 over the last 13 months and carry a 50.2 CorsiFor% and 64.6 GoalsFor% while averaging 32 ScoringChancesFor/60 and 30 ScoringChancesAgainst/60. Losing Matthews is tough, but it helps to have a centre of Kadri’s caliber when he does go down. Last year the Maple Leafs were 11-7-2 while Matthews was out and Kadri had eight goals and four assists (12 points) in the 20 games he missed. 

In addition to Babcock shuffling the lines, this also puts added pressure on General Manager Kyle Dubas to get a deal done with restricted free-agent William Nylander. This injury should give Nylander’s camp a little more leverage if the Maple Leafs start losing games. One month will cost Matthews 14-to-15 games, which isn’t the end of the world, but it would definitely help to have Nylander back during that stretch. 

An injury to Matthews makes the Maple Leafs look significantly thinner up front (obviously), as Babcock now has to lean on first-year NHLer Par Lindholm and 23-year-old Frederik Gauthier as his third and fourth-line centres. A team that could match-up with anyone will suddenly have to hope their bottom-six can handle some tough assignments. 

The Maple Leafs will place Matthews on IR later today and will likely announce a call-up from the Toronto Marlies (AHL) at that time.