Brendan Shanahan Breaks His Silence on Auston Matthews' Mysterious Injury
Brendan Shanahan took time during the Winter Meetings in order to speak to TSN, and ended up giving his insight into the Auston Matthews injury situation.
Auston Matthews' injury was one of the biggest question marks that dominated the Maple Leafs season since the beginning of November. Being out for nearly a month, the Maple Leafs captain had a whirlwind that brought him across the world and back.
Though now he's healthy and back on the ice, the results haven't been great so far for the Maple Leafs. With questions around his spot in the lineup, another question came up was how did President Brendan Shanahan react to all of this?
Shanahan Doesn't Budge Regarding Matthews' Privacy
Speaking to TSN's Gino Reda on That's Hockey, the Leafs President gave his comments regarding the situation and how he thought everything was handled:
They want us to reveal how we feel, but there's privacy and team's do it not to keep secrets but there's a competitive disadvantage for revealing that.
As far as Auston goes, or any player on the team, we'll do everything we can to help them get better, feel better, glad he's back, he's important to our team and he'd be the first to say he wanted to get back.
As far as facilitating the medicine and practitioners, we want to be on the cutting edge to help that player get back on the ice."
Shanahan did spill the beans a bit about why Toronto was so transparent and that's understandable given he doesn't want to put a bullseye on his captain's back.
But there's an inherent frustration among fans and analysts that there needs to be a middle ground somewhere, as continued absences and using cutting-edge treatments don't have the best optics to the general audience.
The issue with Matthews flying to Germany had part to do with the fact he went halfway across the world for treatment, but that he did so under a polarizing sports medicine doctor who has been known to bring along a bit on controversy with his work.
So far this season, Matthews has only 8 goals and 18 points in 18 games and he did miss a significant chunk of time due to injury.
The fact that he has come back to score less, and has not shown signs of his previous ability; it's a worrying sign though, and Toronto needs him to pick it up soon.
The main factor here is that Matthews is healthy and back on the ice, although his pairing up with Mitch Marner again has led Toronto back to the status quo where they've been spinning their wheels for years, leading to discussion about splitting the two of them.
If Shanahan is confident that Matthews is healthy and back to full speed, that's great news for fans and for the Maple Leafs. But it's up to Matthews to start being that dominant force again, as he hasn't truly showed it yet this season.
| POLL | ||
Should Toronto have been more transparent with Auston Matthews' injury? | ||
| Yes | 459 | 51.5 % |
| No | 433 | 48.5 % |
| List of polls | ||
