Maple Leafs, NHL Teams Face Issues After USA’s Olympic Win

“Some uncertainty around when Team USA players will rejoin their NHL clubs,” Dreger said. “The Leafs are in Tampa Bay on Wed. USA has been invited to the White House tomorrow, so Toronto is unclear as to when Auston Matthews will return to the team. A challenge for all NHL clubs with US players.”

Matthews captained the United States and carried the country to its first Olympic gold medal in men’s hockey since 1980. The Maple Leafs forward scored three goals and seven points during the tournament.

In the NHL this season, Matthews has 26 goals and 48 points in 51 games and remains central to Toronto’s playoff push after a poor start to the campaign dropped the Maple Leafs in the standings.

Toronto will return from the break with a 27-21-9 record, tied for sixth in the Atlantic Division and six points behind the Boston Bruins for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, both teams having played 57 games.

The situation with Olympic players, however, is not limited to the Maple Leafs. The NHL returns with eight games on Wednesday, including many matchups involving players who competed in Sunday’s final.

According to TSN , "Team USA is invited to the White House to celebrate their victory with President Donald Trump on Tuesday," and that will remove two days — Monday and Tuesday — from the potential return timeline to practices of the Americans involved in Sunday's game.

The Maple Leafs sent three players to the Olympics — Matthews and two Swedish internationals, William Nylander and Oliver Ekman-Larsson — while the Lightning sent eight players and Canada's head coach Jon Cooper, yet only two of the players (USA's Jake Guentzel and Canada's Brandon Hagel) stayed all the way through the gold-medal game.

Toronto visits Eastern Conference-leading Tampa Bay at 7:30 p.m. ET Wednesday.