Auston Matthews did not appear to be moving too quickly during the Maple Leafs’ optional practice on Wednesday, as a video emerges showing the captain moving quite slowly.

The Maple Leafs approached Tuesday’s game against the New Jersey Devils with the right mindset under the circumstances. The circumstances were that four regulars in Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Chris Tanev and Dakota Joshua were all ruled out. The message was simple, though: just go out there and outwork the opposition.

No Matthews, no Nylander, no Tanev, no Joshua, no problem, as it turned out.

The Leafs got meaningful contributions from a number of key role players, like Nick Robertson, Bobby McMann and Nicolas Roy. They also got star performances from Matthew Knies, who was one assist shy of a Gordie Howe hat trick, and Joseph Woll, who posed a 33-save shutout.

Auston Matthews moving very gingerly in new video from practice

What we know about Matthews’ injury is that it’s a lower-body issue and that he suffered it at some point during the 3-2 OT loss in Detroit. While it seemed like a minor issue, though, the video recently shared by The Hockey News’ Nick Barden shows the captain moving very cautiously.

What originally appeared to be a minor issue suddenly doesn’t look so minor. The captain is not skating with any sort of intent or purpose, and it’s concerning.

Now, at running the risk of trying to catastrophize things and making the issue appear worse than it is, does this look like a player who is moving around effortlessly?

Players get hurt all the time, and by the midway point of the season, guys are playing through all sorts of minor injuries, even if it’s just routine bumps and bruises. Nobody is 100%, and both players and coaches will tell you that.

Still, when it’s a player as important as Auston Matthews, it does make you worry a little bit. The Leafs rely so much on their captain, and the idea of shutting him down for several weeks when the team is finally starting to make inroads towards propelling themselves back into the playoff picture, it’s just not a conversation anyone wants to have right now.

We’ll see what type of update Craig Berube and the Maple Leafs are able to offer in the coming days, but hopefully this is just an overreaction to a short video with little context and nothing more.

Previously on Toronto Hockey Daily