BOSTON – Auston Matthews was back on the ice with his teammates Saturday.
The Maple Leafs centre snapped the puck around, took part in drills and seemed to be moving well at Toronto’s morning skate.
Whether or not Matthews returns to the action with his club’s season once again on the line remains to be seen.
The ailing sniper hasn’t been ruled out for Game 7 of the Leafs’ first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins, but head coach Sheldon Keefe seemed to suggest his best player isn’t quite ready to return.
“We’ll see what the day brings,” Keefe said. “But as of right now, we’ve got all of our forwards that have been playing in the series preparing to play.
“With Auston, obviously, if he’s available you’re gonna use him. But as of right now we’re proceeding as we’ve been.”
Matthews hasn’t suited up since Game 4 when he was pulled from the action by doctors during the second intermission because of an illness.
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Toronto faced a steep climb trailing the Original Six matchup 3-1 minus its main attraction before pulling off consecutive 2-1 victories, including an overtime road triumph in Game 5, to force the winner-take-all finale at TD Garden.
Leafs winger Mitch Marner was asked how Matthews, who arrived at the rink Saturday morning sporting a Star Wars T-shirt, has been handling the absence.
“You’re getting asked 1,000 times a day, ‘How are you doing?’” Marner said. “It’s annoying. He wants to be out there. He’s a hell of a competitor. You’ve seen it at every level.”
Keefe was asked before Game 5 if there was something else — namely an injury — bothering Matthews, but he declined to answer directly.
The workhorse forward, who led the NHL with the league’s first 69-goal regular season in almost three decades, skated Wednesday at the team’s practice facility and again Thursday for about 30 minutes before Game 6.
The Leafs also dealt with the absence of winger William Nylander (undisclosed injury) for the first three contests of the best-of-seven matchup.
Toronto came back from 3-1 deficits in both 2013 and 2018 against Boston before losing Game 7 on the road. The Bruins also downed the Leafs in a series that went the distance in 2019 at TD Garden.
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The winner of Toronto-Boston will meet the rested Florida Panthers in the second round beginning Monday after they dispatched the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1.
The three-time Maurice (Rocket) Richard Trophy winner as the NHL’s top goal-scorer, Matthews had a monster three-point Game 2 to help Toronto even the series 1-1. But he didn’t look like himself two nights later in a 4-2 loss as he battled an illness that would eventually force him from Game 4.
Toronto is 3-0 this season without Matthews, including two victories facing elimination this week and a 7-0 regular-season triumph over the Pittsburgh Penguins in mid-December.
Toronto is 1-16 all-time when trailing a series 3-1, but Boston blew the same lead last season in the first round against Florida.
Matthews became the first NHL player since Mario Lemieux in 1995-96 to reach 69 goals, falling one short of becoming the ninth in history to hit 70.
“He’s been progressing,” Keefe said. “No determination with his status for (Game 7) … last time we were in here, I think he got about 10 minutes out on the ice.
“(Saturday) we got him about 15, so that’s progress, but no determination on his status.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2024.
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