Auston Matthews breaks silence on potential injury after Leafs elimination from playoffs

Auston Matthews was asked directly if he was healthy after the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated by the Florida Panthers on Sunday. The Leafs lost to the Panthers in Game 7, after losing their initial 2-0 lead in round 2.

Matthews chose not to give a clear answer about playing injured.

"I don’t know. I’m not really going to address that right now," Matthews told the media after Game 7. "You go out there and just try to compete and give your all, and that’s what I was trying to do."

The Leafs lost 6-1 to the Panthers in the last game of the best-of-seven series in front of their home crowd at Scotiabank Arena. Matthews had no points and was a minus-2 in the game. He took just two shots in 17:27 of ice time.

In 13 playoff games this year, Auston Matthews recorded 11 points (3 goals, 8 assists). He scored only once in the second-round series against Florida. His performance has dropped massively after a strong regular season in 2023-24, where he had 69 goals. So, it led to questions about whether he was playing with an injury.

Matthews missed 15 games during the regular season due to injury. He first sat out nine games in November because of an upper-body issue. He then missed six more after re-aggravating the injury on December 20. He also missed a game in the 4 Nations Faceoff against Sweden, which the USA lost.

In Game 7, Seth Jones opened the scoring, and the Panthers quickly gained a 3-0 lead with additional goals from Anton Lundell and Jonah Gadjovich. Max Domi scored the only goal for the Leafs and made it 3-1 early in the third period. Eetu Luostarinen scored 47 seconds later to make it 4-1. Reinhart and Marchand scored the Panthers' last two goals.

They will now head to the Eastern Conference finals to face the Carolina Hurricanes.

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Auston Matthews shared the reason behind Game 7 loss

Talking about the loss, Auston Matthews said the team wasn’t connected in Game 7. He felt they were ready, but didn’t stay focused. He thought Florida was stronger early, but Toronto controlled the next 10 minutes.

"I just thought we had too many passengers throughout the rest of the game.” Matthews said, via NHL.com.

Forward Mitch Marner also agreed with Auston Matthews' comments.

"That's the right wording," Marne said referring to Matthews' statement. "... Can't have passengers in a Game 7. It just [stinks]."

Florida outshot Toronto 18-5 in the second period, and the Maple Leafs could not recover. Toronto’s season ended with yet another Game 7 loss.