Matthews of Maple Leafs has knee surgery, recovery time 12 weeks

Auston Matthews had knee surgery on Thursday, and the Toronto Maple Leafs center has an expected recovery time of 12 weeks.

Matthews sustained a grade 3 MCL tear and quad contusion in his left leg in a knee-on-knee collision with defenseman Radko Gudas in a 6-4 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Scotiabank Arena on March 12 and the team announced two days later that he would have season-ending surgery.

The 28-year-old crumpled to the ice when he tried to sidestep the hit in the slot from Gudas, who was assessed a major penalty for kneeing and a game misconduct at 15:47 of the second period. Matthews was helped off the ice by a trainer and teammate Brandon Carlo, putting minimal weight on his left leg.

Gudas was suspended five games by the NHL Department of Player Safety.

“Obviously feel for Auston,” Toronto forward John Tavares said before a 3-2 shootout loss at the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday. “I know how hard he’s been just grinding away trying to play the game at a high level and help this team as best he can and lead the way. … Just want him to get healthy and feel good as soon as possible.”

Matthews had 53 points (27 goals, 26 assists) in 60 games this season for the Maple Leafs (29-28-12), who are 12 points behind the Detroit Red Wings and Boston Bruins for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

He had already been ruled out for the remainder of the regular season, and the 12-week timeline means Matthews likely would not be able to return barring a lengthy playoff run by Toronto.  

“It’s tough to lose a guy like that for the year,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “Obviously we’re not happy about it; nobody’s happy about it, but we’ve got to move on and get ready to play. I mean, there’s nothing we can do about it now, right?”

Toronto’s all-time leader with 428 goals, Matthews has 780 points (352 assists) in 689 games. Selected by Toronto with the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NHL Draft, Matthews was named captain of the Maple Leafs prior to the 2024-25 season. He was also the captain for Team USA, which won the gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics.

This is the second season in a row Matthews will be out a significant chunk of time. He missed 15 games last season because of two separate upper-body injuries. He also missed eight games in the 2022-23 season, and nine games in the 2021-22 season. He hasn’t played 82 games in a season since his rookie season in 2016-17,.