Maple Leafs Captain Auston Matthews Undergoes Surgery
Brad Penner-Imagn Images The final impact of Radko Gudas’ brutal knee-on-knee hit on Auston Matthews has been revealed. The Toronto Maple Leafs captain has officially undergone surgery to repair his MCL, the team announced on Thurdsay. pic.
twitter. com/CGNLXmA5B4 — Toronto Maple Leafs (@MapleLeafs) March 19, 2026 The team release said that Matthews had successful MCL repair surgery in New York City on Thursday. His recovery time is about 12 weeks.
That timeline takes us to late June. That would give him most of the summer to get back into hockey shape and be ready for training camp in September. It was only three days ago that it was reported that the Leafs & Matthews were still hoping to avoid surgery.
But more medical opinions have obviously changed the calculus on that. Matthews was injured and knocked out of the rest of the 2025-26 campaign earlier this month. Anaheim Ducks defenseman Gudas, aka The Butcher, took the Leafs captain down with an ugly and illegal knee-on-knee hit.
Auston Matthews had to leave the game after this knee on knee hit from Radko Gudas. Gudas was given a game misconduct 5 minute major pic. twitter.