Toronto Maple Leafs must take action against Auston Matthews before it's too late

Auston Matthews was dealing with an injury that forced him to go to Europe to find some sort of healing, and now, that injury has been re-aggravated, much to the chagrin of the Maple Leafs.

Matthews sat out on Sunday against the New York Islanders, and his status against the Winnipeg Jets is up in the air.

The game is in just a few hours from now, and no one actually knows whether or not the captain will be playing.

However, there is something bigger at play here that the Maple Leafs absolutely need to consider, before more damage is done.

Of course, we are talking about the 4 Nations Face-Off which is set to take place in February.

Auston Matthews had been selected to play for Team USA, and deservingly so. However, the Maple Leafs need to put their foot down and tell their captain to sit this one out.

There are a few reasons for this. For starters, the 4 Nations Face-Off is a novelty tournament, and playing in it could risk further injury to Matthews.

Furthermore, the Maple Leafs have a pretty solid record without Matthews in the lineup, which means they should be sitting him from regular season games and additional action until he is 100 percent ready to go.

Lastly, this team is in a great position to make a deep playoff run, and if Matthews is injured, they will have a much more difficult time accomplishing that.

At this point, the path forward seems very obvious, and it will be up to Craig Berube and Brad Treliving to be the responsible parties in the room and sit their captain down.

Putting him on the LTIR is also an option, and one that the team should absolutely consider, even if it feels a bit drastic.