Maple Leafs Auston Matthews Returning in New Year

The Toronto Maple Leafs will miss out on Auston Matthews to cap off 2024, but he may be ready for the new year.

Dec 7, 2024; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA; Toronto Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews (34) looks on against the Pittsburgh Penguins during the third period at PPG Paints Arena. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images / Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

The Toronto Maple Leafs will bookend the New Year’s festivities with home-and-home meetings with the New York Islanders, but will play at least the first half without their captain. Auston Matthews has been out of the Maple Leafs lineup for the last four games after aggravating an upper-body injury that sidelined him for nearly a month earlier in the season.

While Matthews will for sure miss his fifth straight game, the Maple Leafs may see him back for their first game in 2025. David Alter of The Hockey News believes Matthews should be ready for a return in the second half of the home-and-home with the Islanders.

“I actually think he might return to the lineup on January 2nd,” Alter told TSN’s First Up. “Just based on what I saw.”

This isn’t a guarantee that Matthews is set for a return in the new year, but he’s working his way back at a much faster pace this time around. Matthews has already done some skating with his teammates and shouldn’t need too much time to get back to game speed.

According to Alter, Matthews is putting in the work to keep up and shouldn’t have any problems in returning to game action in the near future.

“I watched most of his 30-minute session before practice began, working with the skills coach,” Alter said. “He didn’t really seem out of place.”

The Maple Leafs played well earlier in the year without Matthews in the lineup, going 7-2-0 with Mitch Marner picking up a lot of the slack. This time around, however, the Maple Leafs are feeling Matthews’ absence a bit more.

They’re 1-3-0 in their last four games without Matthews, even with Marner still producing at a high level. According to Alter, Matthews ringing in the new year healthy is not a far-off wish for the Leafs.

“Start the new year with a fully healthy Auston Matthews is perhaps the hope for the Maple Leafs.”

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