I have to wonder why Matthews played against Vegas, now he missed the one game, and sounds like he wont be in tomorrow, and I am in high doubt for Saturday--however Leafs play only two games next week, the first is Thursday, so maybe just being extra cautious, which I am fine with.
Not sure why people think Gardiner is going to be traded for a defensemen. That is not usually how things work (subban for weber, those type of trades rarely occur). Our area of strength is the wing, so our trade partner would likely be a team that needs a scoring/speedy winger. Anaheim, Edmonton just sent Yamamoto down earlier in the week. Kyperos the other day said if they wanted Marner it would start with Nurse, which makes no sense because Nurse is left handed. Further, he used the "Taylor Hall trade," as an example, which is dumb since at that time Edmonton just drafted Mcdavid so they had; Hall, Nuge, Eberle, Leon, and Mcdavid---we have Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Brown--not the same at all.