‘I’M READY TO PLAY,’ SAYS MATTHEWS

Could face the Sharks tonight but there’s no rush for Leafs to bring him back.

By its random, punishing nature, hockey doesn’t lend itself to durability. Great ironmen stand out.

The immortal Gordie Howe, the alltime leader in NHL games played who never missed a night of work in the swan-song season that included his 52nd birthday, is a retro outlier for today’s players to marvel at. Aspiring to such super-humanness seems almost unfathomable.

Ditto Patrick Marleau, the 39-year-old Maple Leafs forward, who played his 1,600th game Monday night. In 21 seasons in the league, Marleau has missed a mere 31 games. By stark contrast, since the beginning of last season, 21year-old teammate Auston Matthews has missed 34.

That’s 34 games to four different injuries for Toronto’s best player — one to each shoulder, a back and a concussion. Matthews has played just 68 per cent of Maple Leafs games over that span.

So whenever Matthews returns from his latest bout with a shoulder injury — and his participation in his first fullcontact practice Tuesday suggested his reinsertion in Toronto’s lineup could come as early as Wednesday’s home game against the San Jose Sharks — fans of the team should consider it a good sign that he’ll bring along a new focus on survival.

“I think the goal is to not get crunched like I did when the injury happened — to, you know, see stuff coming,” Matthews said Tuesday, speaking of the beastly hit by Winnipeg’s Jacob Trouba that put him out of action for a month and counting.

“To not shy away from hits, but take the lesser part of them.”

That’s a wise way of looking at the world for Toronto’s big No. 34, who pronounced himself “ready to play” after Tuesday’s workout. Nobody doubts the enormity of his on-ice genius. (For all the excitement around Patrik Laine’s five-goal night on Saturday, which vaulted the Winnipeg sniper into the league lead with 19 goals, it’s worth remembering that Matthews’s career even-strength goalscoring rate is still superior to Laine’s). Still, it’s more than a little alarming that Matthews has spent large chunks of the past two seasons engaged in off-ice rehab.

Marleau, for his part, said if there’s a recipe for NHL longevity, Matthews appears to be following it.

“Things like (Matthews’s latest injury) happen in the game. It’s hard to get around them sometimes,” Marleau said. “But I think the guys that are coming in now, like Mats, they’re doing the right things away from the rink, at the rink, to keep themselves healthy. He’s had a couple of injuries these last two years, but he might not have another one for a long time.”

Indeed, injuries happen. And Matthews, it’s worth remembering, also played all 82 games as a super-hyped rookie who was the centrepiece of opposing game plans on a nightly basis. In other words, he’s proven he can get through a season without multiple MRIs.

TONIGHT Sharks at Maple Leafs Scotiabank Arena 7:30 p.m. (Sportsnet)

Still, Matthews isn’t wrong to come back to work of the belief that evading contact, or minimizing its impact, needs to be a point of emphasis.

On the day he was most recently injured, in an Oct. 27 home game against Winnipeg, no NHL forward had absorbed more hits than Matthews at that point in the season, according to NaturalStatTrick.com. In 11 games, Matthews had been hit 26 times. Even Zach Hyman, Toronto’s designated punishment taker, had been bodychecked less often. Connor McDavid, at the same point, had been hit 10 times, Sidney Crosby nine. Mitch Marner, the slippery Maple Leafs wizard, had been hit eight times.

In other words, Matthews, as a big-bodied puck carrier with a fearless streak, is a target. And the scouting report isn’t going to change once he returns. If anything, opposing teams will double down on their strategy of physicality. Marleau isn’t convinced it’ll be a problem.

“I think it’s actually part of his game. When guys are defending him, he uses his big body to bounce off them. It may look like they’re hitting him, but he’s using their power and strength against them, I think,” Marleau said. “He protects the puck so well. It may look like they’re bumping into him, but he’s actually bumping into that guy, and using that energy to get away from him. He does that all the time in practice. He’s a big body, and he can take it, obviously.”

He can take it, sure. But only to a point. If I’m Leafs coach Mike Babcock, I’d be happy with Matthews using his big body to bounce off defenders a little less and roll off them a little more. And if I’m a member of Toronto’s medical staff, might be disinclined to rush him back into the fray. While Wednesday’s home game against the Sharks is clearly a possibility for Matthews’s reintroduction, Saturday’s game in Minnesota would work, too. There’s exactly zero rush. The Maple Leafs have played at 105-point pace in Matthews’s absence.

Babcock, as if to underline the lack of urgency for Matthews’s services, said he hadn’t yet thought about where Matthews might fit in the lineup.

“Until they tell me he’s playing, this is just us talking about it,” said the coach. “When he’s available, I’m sure we’ll find him some linemates.”

On Tuesday, Matthews sounded as though he might prefer more full-contact work in practice before he plays a game.

“It was good,” he said of Tuesday’s practice.

“I think it will just get better over time, over more practices. Then you jump into a game, I think it will kind of take a period of adjusting, the first couple of shifts.”

Then, again, Matthews also said his vaunted shot, the weapon largely responsible for his 10 goals in 11 games this season, “felt good.” Pucks went in the net.

“I don’t know, maybe (goaltender) Freddie (Andersen) was giving me a couple in warmups,” Matthews joked.

Whenever he comes back, the smart money is on a quick re-acquaintance with the scoresheet.

Last year, in his first game back after a four-game absence nursing a back injury in November, Matthews scored two goals in a win against Montreal. In his first game back from a six-game break recovering from a December concussion, he notched another two-point night while scoring the gamewinning goal. And when he missed 10 games with another shoulder injury last February and March, he reappeared in the lineup with a goal in a victory in Nashville. How has he managed to make those return games so memorable?

“You just do all the work you can when you’re injured to stay in shape, to work out, get stronger, focus on different things,” Matthews said. “So when you come back you’re ready to go, and try to get back into top gear as fast as possible.”

Back into top gear quickly sounds good. Back into the lineup for a long time to come sounds far, far better.