The Toronto Maple Leafs keeping their injuries secret is not fair to their fans

I’m not sure there’s a team more protective of their players’ injuries in all of sports than the Toronto Maple Leafs. For years now us fans have been left in the dark, wondering when our favourite players will return and, in some cases, where they are.

And it’s happening again this year. Auston Matthews is day-to-day with no timeline (like that makes any sense), Anthony Stolarz was “fine,” but hasn’t skated in 10 days. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen from any other franchise in sports.

Fans deserve better, honestly. Why all the secrecy? It doesn’t help; it just creates speculation and rumours. I don’t see the point, and I want it to end.

The Auston Matthews situation

When Matthews was hurt against the Boston Bruins—10 days ago now—Craig Berube basically said it was no big deal. Matthews would be day-to-day, maybe miss a couple of games, and be fine.

Well, that was 10 days ago, and Matthews just got back on the ice for the first time. Now Berube says there is no timetable for his return.

All we know is that it’s a “lower-body” injury. But even this doesn’t make much sense. The assumption was that he was hurt after a big hit from behind from Nikita Zadorov, where he fell over and looked to be in a bit of pain. If it wasn’t then, maybe it was when he went after Zadorov and threw a big hit himself?

But both of these would lead to upper-body injuries, not lower. And because Berube and the team won’t give any insight into when Matthews was actually hurt, we’re left to speculate.

Matthews has been the subject of injury concern for years now, going back to his wrist surgery in the summer of 2021. Again, this news got leaked after tons of speculation, and the team never gave a clear answer to when the injury happened or how long it lasted.

And last year’s Germany situation was a debacle, where Matthews was “day-to-day” but had to fly to Germany for an injury we never officially learned about.

It’s fair to want to protect your captain, but to these lengths? How does that help anyone?

Stolarz back soon? Not quite

Anthony Stolarz was hurt in the same game Matthews was, on Nov. 11. Once again, after the game, Craig Berube said he’d be fine. He might even be available in the Leafs’ next game.

And yet, he hasn’t skated since.

Apparently, the injury is much worse than was first thought. Clearly, something was misdiagnosed during that Boston game. Either that, or Craig Berube is speaking about players’ injuries without knowing anything about them. Both are concerning!

We don’t know anything about this injury to Stolarz, just that it happened during the first period of the Bruins game 10 days ago. He hasn’t skated, and we don’t have any information about what the injury is or how long Stolarz looks to be out.

Is it in the same knee that had surgery last year? Are we talking about an LTIR stint or another surgery? No one knows, and it feels like the Leafs medical staff doesn’t know, either.

Losing Stolarz for an extended period of time would be devastating and would put a ton of pressure on Joseph Woll to start almost every game. But we probably won’t find out any time soon!

Other teams don’t do this

When Brady Tkachuk had wrist surgery, he stood in front of cameras and reporters to describe his injury and when he expected to be back. The team gave a 6–8 week timeline, which has stayed accurate.

This is how normal teams deal with this stuff. It is not normal to hide every injury to your important players. Hell, in football, we know a guy has torn his ACL before the game is over.

I don’t know what started this practice, but as a fan, it’s infuriating. Athletes want their privacy, but hiding general information does nothing but cause speculation. I would think the team would be happier providing real updates than dealing with rumours surrounding their players, but I guess not.

It feels like the Leafs see their fans as adversaries, not wanting to give us proper details and blaming us for speculating. But there is a very, very easy fix: Just give us the updates! What happened to Auston Matthews? When should we expect Anthony Stolarz back?

Is that really too much to ask?