Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews (34) is injured by Anaheim Ducks defenceman Radko Gudas (7) in Toronto on Thursday, March 12, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

By The Canadian Press

Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews injured after knee-on-knee hit from Ducks’ Gudas

Mar 12, 2026 | 6:50 PM

TORONTO — Auston Matthews had just taken a pass from William Nylander in the slot and was looking to make a play.

A split-second later, the Toronto Maple Leafs captain was lying prone on the ice in agony clutching his left leg — another brutal scene in a season that has gone off the rails in spectacular fashion.

Toronto’s captain left Thursday’s 6-4 victory over Anaheim and did not return after taking a knee-on-knee hit in the second period from bruising Ducks defenceman Radko Gudas.

“Dirty play,” said Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube, who didn’t have an update on his star centre. “League’s going to obviously look at it and see what the suspension will be or whatever happens.”

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

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None of the four other Toronto players on the ice — Nylander, Morgan Rielly, Brandon Carlo and Easton Cowan — did much with their team’s best player down in pain, despite general manager Brad Treliving’s pronouncement following his 2023 hire that the group needed “snot” in its game for just such instances after years of being pushed around in the Eastern Conference.

Rielly and Nylander both indicated they didn’t fully grasp the severity in the moment.

“It’s on me for not responding earlier to Gudas,” Rielly said. “I didn’t understand how bad he got him … but I take full responsibility for not being the first one in there or being in there quicker.”

Matthews snapped a 12-game goal drought — the second longest of his career — earlier in Thursday’s middle period on a power play. The 28-year-old, who scored 69 times in 2023-24, has 27 goals and 53 points in 60 games this season.

“Should have probably gone in there,” Nylander said of Matthews-Gudas sequence. “But in the situation at the time, I didn’t really understand until, like, 15 seconds later there was more than what I thought it was.

“Ya, should have jumped in.”

A former NHL enforcer with a long history of defending teammates, Berube wasn’t pleased with his players in the moments with Matthews, who had to be helped to the locker room, down in a heap after trying to sidestep Gudas.

“We should have had four guys in there,” he said. “It didn’t happen then, but I thought they responded in the third … we all would have liked everybody to get in there right away.”

Ducks head coach Joel Quenneville, meanwhile, defended his player.

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

Gudas, a hard-nosed defender whose hit ended Canadian captain Sidney Crosby’s Olympics in the quarterfinals while playing for Czechia, was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct.

The 35-year-old has had previous run-ins with the department of player safety. Gudas received a 10-game suspension for a slash across the neck of Winnipeg Jets forward Mathieu Perreault during the 2017-18 season. He’s also been banned for interference, an illegal check to the head and slashing since entering the league in 2012-13.

Maple Leafs centre John Tavares said Gudas is a physical force at all times.

“That’s probably what’s kept him in the league,” he said. “You respect players like that, that have to play that way and whatnot. But that just obviously went too far.”

Gudas was asked following Anaheim’s morning skate about trying to contain Matthews.

“We gotta be on top of him,” he said. “We gotta make sure that he doesn’t get space in the middle of the ice … make his night not enjoyable.”

Knies, whose team scored five straight goals after trailing 3-1 to end an ugly 0-6-2 run coming out of the Olympic break that doomed any realistic hope of a 10th straight playoff appearance, said there was plenty of chatter in the locker room in the second intermission.

“Get some licks on their top players,” he said. “It’s frustrating seeing our best player go down like that.

“But we stayed on course and didn’t really do anything too stupid. We just fought back and played a great game.”

Toronto came out with physical intent in the third, including Cowan going after Anaheim defenceman Jackson LaCombe to register his first NHL fight following a hit on Nick Robertson.

“We know the importance of sticking up for each other,” Tavares said. “Whether it was (on the Gudas hit) or it was the response to the rest of the game, I think we understood what was required.

“Really good job of playing hard, playing physical, playing smart, and going at our opponent. Not only playing physical and standing our ground and responding to what happened but doing what we need to do to win the hockey game.”

The Maple Leafs will now wait to see what comes next — for both Matthews and Gudas.

“It’s out of out of my hands,” Tavares said when asked about supplemental discipline. “Hopefully the right thing’s done.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2026.

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press