Toronto taking advantage of a relatively lighter schedule this week, with only two games in eight days, to help Matthews return to health.

The depleted Leafs won’t be returning to full strength this week.

 

Auston Matthews will miss his seventh consecutive game Wednesday against the Vegas Golden Knights with an upper-body injury, head coach Craig Berube said.

 

The Maple Leafs captain last appeared in the lineup on Nov. 3 against the Minnesota Wild and hasn’t skated in more than a week.

 

“I think it’s a little bit of a holding pattern, but he’s not getting worse, so that’s a good thing,” Berube said Monday. “It’s just taking time. It’s taken long, but it is what it is … our team needs to just push on without him right now.”

The Leafs are taking advantage of a relatively lighter schedule this week, with only two games in eight days, to help Matthews return to health. He could be back in the lineup Sunday against the Utah Hockey Club.

The Leafs have a 5-1-0 record since Matthews’s absence but have struggled to score at even strength without the league’s reigning top goal scorer. They’ve scored six goals at five-on-five in the six-game stretch, which ranks 30th in the league in that span.

 

“We need to do a better job of disrupting more plays on our forecheck and getting the puck back,” Berube said. “We were doing a real good job of it for a while this year, and our expected goals were good, like our chances were better. That’s what’s missing right now in our game. We’re a little bit slow, whether it’s through transition or breaking a puck out.”

Matthews will be joined on the sideline by forward Ryan Reaves, serving a five-game suspension for an illegal check to the head of Edmonton Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse.

 

Nurse will be out for around five-to-10 days, Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch told reporters in Montreal.

Although Berube doesn’t like the length of the suspension, he understands the league’s perspective and doesn’t think there was any malice behind Reaves’ hit.

 

“I think it’s a lot, but at the same time, the league is going to do what they think is the right thing to do,” he said. “There’s nothing we can do about that.”

 

He added: “He’s upset that he put his team down, but at the same time, his type of game and sometimes things happen. It’s not like he’s a dirty player. He’s not a dirty player. He’s a clean player, in my opinion, for his role.”

 

Calle Järnkrok, who hasn’t played this season, will also be out for the foreseeable future. The club announced Monday that he underwent groin and sports hernia surgery, and is now listed as month-to-month.

Berube said the circumstances surrounding Järnkrok’s injury have been unfortunate.