It won’t be long now before the Toronto Maple Leafs and healthy captain Auston Matthews drop the puck on the 2026-27 NHL regular season following what has been a summer of monumental changes.
Matthews can forever point to “gold medal winner” on his professional resume after he captained Team USA to an upset victory over Team Canada in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan in February, and one of his teammates happens to be a divisional opponent.
Matthews’ Team USA teammate Matthew Tkachuk, who plays for the divisional rival Florida Panthers, had a good-natured warning for the Toronto captain.
Toronto Maple Leafs Captain Auston Matthews Received A Good-Natured Warning From Matthew Tkachuk
As part of their massive offseason haul of new players, the Toronto Maple Leafs signed forward Jack Roslovic to a two-year, $8 million contract.
During a recent media session, Matthews related the warning that he received from Tkachuk about if he or Roslovic decided to do a particular celebration following a goal against the Panthers.
“Yeah, we used to call ourselves the Superman line in junior, and he told us if we played against him and scored and did the Superman celly, he was going to kill one of us,” Matthews said with a smile.
Meanwhile, here’s what Roslovic had to say about what he’d do if he and Matthews linked up for a goal against the Panthers this season:
“There might be. Maybe,” he said. “Yeah, might be. I think it was the Cam Newton era, when he was ripping the jersey open. So, it was jokes.”
Matthews Is Healthy And Ready To Go
Matthews, who suffered a Grade 3 MCL sprain last season after being hit by Anaheim Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas (who is back with the Panthers now), has been a full participant in Training Camp and skated in Toronto’s home exhibition contest against the rival Montreal Canadiens.
As he recently explained, he’s feeling ready to go, and the moves from GM John Chayka over the summer met with his approval.
“I’m here with John now and I really like what he’s done this summer,” Matthews said via NHL.com. “He’s made some great changes, brought in some great people, some great players, great outside hires as well, and it’s been great so far meeting everybody. It’s been super positive, great energy at the rink. I think for myself it was more so just taking a step back and seeing who comes in because you never know, they might think something different or have different plans or visions for what they see fit, so I thought it was just appropriate to take a step back, see what happens and go from there.
“I think my intent was always to be here. I think with the way things finished last year, general manager gets fired before the season is over and there was a lot of incoming change that you never really know who is coming in, what their plan is, what they think, and for myself it was just to take a step back, see what happens and have open lines of communications with whoever was hired.”
Matthew Tkachuk Sends Warning To Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews