Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews may be returning to the lineup during Wednesday’s game against the Florida Panthers, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli stated Thursday evening.

Seravalli made an appearance on NHL Coast to Coast on Amazon Prime to provide an update on Matthews’ injury status. He noted that Matthews is a private person when it comes to his injuries, which is largely why his injury designation has been mysterious over the past three weeks.

Matthews was first removed from the lineup on November 5 prior to the Maple Leafs’ game against the Boston Bruins with an upper-body injury and was listed as day-to-day. The injury proceeded past the day-to-day designation, and Matthews was placed on injured reserve retroactive to November 3, on November 8, and he was eligible to return on November 10. Matthews went to Munich to see a specialist this week, and Seravalli provided a further update Wednesday.

“What I can tell you is that he’s actually still in Munich, Germany getting treatment on this injury,” Seravalli said. “He’s scheduled to return to North America sometime within the next 24 hours. The Toronto Maple Leafs believe he’s made significant progress over the course of this week in treating that injury. They’re hopeful that when he comes back, this will be completely in his rearview mirror. And when is that? Well, it seems like all signals point to Auston Matthews returning to the Maple Leafs lineup on Wednesday.”

This is consistent with what GM Brad Treliving and coach Craig Berube said when both spoke with the media regarding when they expect Matthews to be back. The fact he should be returning from Germany soon suggests that he is unlikely to play on Sunday against the Utah Hockey Club.

Of course, anything can change and perhaps Matthews is easy in time for the game against Utah but Treliving felt it was more likely that their captain would return to action during their road trip in Florida.

“Maybe, maybe not (against Utah),” Treliving said Tuesday of Matthews’ potential return. “We go to Florida after that, so that’s sort of where I feel more comfortable. Maybe Sunday, but probably after that on the road.”

“We haven’t been trying to be cryptic with all this stuff. We’ve been calling him day to day because that’s what he’s been. We’ve looked at the schedule here and what we are trying to do is use this week and hopefully get this thing behind him.”

While the Leafs have been able to weather to storm in his absence to the tune of a 6-1-0 record, there is no doubt that getting Matthews back in the fold will be a massive boost for the team. Max Pacioretty, Calle Jarnkrok, Max Domi, Matthew Knies, and David Kampf are all dealing with injuries, missing time while Ryan Reaves is in the midst of his five-game suspension.

Before his injury, Matthews recorded 11 points (five goals and six assists) in 13 games played.