Leafs’ Auston Matthews out for season after knee-to-knee hit

Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews will miss the remainder of the 2025-26 NHL season with a torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee, the team announced Friday.

Matthews, who has a Grade 3 MCL tear and also a bruised quadriceps muscle, will be re-evaluated in two weeks.

The team’s update came a little under 24 hours after Matthews was knocked out of Thursday night’s game against Anaheim on a knee-on-knee hit from Radko Gudas.

Gudas was given a major penalty and ejected. He was schedule to have a phone hearing with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety on Friday morning to determine if he would face supplemental discipline.

Trying to make a move around Gudas in the slot in the second period of Toronto’s 6-4 victory, Matthews stook a direct blow to his left leg and crashed to the ice. The U.S. Olympic captain stayed down before being helped to the locker room.

Leafs coach Craig Berube made it clear he wasn’t happy about the Gudas hit, and that none of Matthews’ teammates stepped in to engage with Gudas following the strike.

“It’s a dirty play,” Berube said. “We should have had four guys in there doing something about it … we all would have liked everyone to get in there right away.”

Gudas is the bruising Czech defender who ended Canadian captain Sidney Crosby’s Olympics in the quarterfinals with a hit.

“He’s done a few of those before in his career,” Toronto winger Matthew Knies said.

Ducks coach Joel Quenneville defended his player.

“There’s no premeditation,” Quenneville said. “Reflexes did it.”

Matthews, 28 finishes the season with 27 goals and 53 points in 60 games. Toronto is projected to miss the postseason for the first time since Matthews entered the league in 2016 as the No. 1 pick.

It has been a trying season all around for Matthews and the Leafs, who only just snapped an eight-game winless streak with the victory over Anaheim. Matthews himself ended a 12-game scoreless drought with a power play goal prior to the hit from Gudas.

Toronto is currently third-to-last in the Eastern Conference with a 28-27-11 record.

The Leafs take on the Atlantic Division-leading Buffalo Sabres on Saturday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.