{"id":502078,"date":"2026-03-14T00:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/502078\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T00:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T00:12:16","slug":"maple-leafs-star-auston-matthews-out-for-season-with-a-torn-mcl-after-kneeing-by-radko-gudas-pro-national-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/502078\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews out for season with a torn MCL after kneeing by Radko Gudas | Pro National Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews has a torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee and will miss the rest of the NHL season.<\/p>\n

The team provided an injury update Friday night, a little under 24 hours since Matthews was knocked out of a game against Anaheim on a knee-on-knee hit from Radko Gudas.<\/p>\n

The Leafs said Matthews has a Grade 3 MCL tear and a bruised quadriceps muscle and would be evaluated again in two weeks. Gudas is facing up to a five-game suspension<\/a> for kneeing.<\/p>\n

Gudas was given a major penalty and ejected.<\/p>\n

\u201cDirty play,\u201d Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said Thursday night. \u201cLeague\u2019s going to obviously look at it and see what the suspension will be or whatever happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trying to make a move around Gudas in the slot in the second period of Toronto\u2019s 6-4 victory<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Gudas is the bruising Czech defender who ended Canadian captain Sidney Crosby\u2019s Olympics in the quarterfinals with a hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s done a few of those before in his career,\u201d Toronto winger Matthew Knies said.<\/p>\n

Gudas was asked following Anaheim\u2019s morning skate about trying to contain Matthews.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe go to be on top of him,\u201d Gudas said. \u201cWe got to make sure that he doesn\u2019t get space in the middle of the ice \u2026 make his night\u2019s not enjoyable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ducks coach Joel Quenneville defended his player.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no premeditation,\u201d Quenneville said. \u201cReflexes did it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Matthews snapped a 12-game goal drought earlier in the period on a power play. He had 27 goals and 26 assists in 60 games this season.<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO (AP) \u2014 Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews has a torn medial collateral ligament in his left…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":502079,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[2210,233,5292,1739,5,4,46500,46501,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-502078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-anaheim-ducks","8":"tag-anaheim","9":"tag-anaheim-ducks","10":"tag-anaheimducks","11":"tag-ducks","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-pro_national_sports","15":"tag-pronational_sports","16":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116224638582380043","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=502078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/502079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=502078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=502078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=502078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}