Mats Sundin has made a decision about his future. The Maple Leafs captain won't play the rest of the season because of a nagging groin muscle tear that isn't improving.

As for next season . . . well, that's still up in the air and will be until well into the summer.

Sundin met with a group of reporters at the Leafs' practice facility this afternoon and said he remains uncertain as to whether he will play next season. He did say that if he does continue his career (he's a free agent July 1), it will be with Toronto ' if the Leafs will have him back.

"Right now, I haven't even decided about next year or what I'm going to do next year," he said.

"I want to heal up my body, wait till this season is over and then I'm going to take a few weeks ' I thought that really helped me last year ' to get some distance from the season and analyze how I played; get a little overview of how the season went. I'm going to do the same thing this year and hopefully I'll make a good decision after that."

When asked directly if he'd play anywhere else, the 37-year-old said "no" but qualified it by saying he wasn't sure what direction the team would want to take.

"In terms of my own situation, it's going to be determined by what happens here. Am I going to be welcomed back? I don't have a contract. We'll have to wait and see, all of us, as to what direction the Toronto Maple Leafs want to go," he said.

"I'm not different than any of the other guys on our team. Two years without making the playoffs and now a third one. I think everybody is screaming for changes and . . . the Toronto Maple Leaf hockey fans deserve to have a team that is in the playoffs and one of the best organizations in the league every year. Nothing else should be acceptable."

Sundin said it was "great to hear" that interim general manager Cliff Fletcher said he'd be welcomed back but, with a new regime coming in, he still reserved judgement on whether that meant he had a secure spot in Toronto.

"I think we all have to wait and see what the Toronto Maple Leafs are going to do this summer and we'll have to react from that," he said.

"I'm just like the other players on this team. I'll have to wait to see what the Toronto Maple Leafs want to do. I also want to sit down and look at my own situation and what I want to do for next year too."

Sundin said he won't need surgery on his torn groin muscle. He will stay in Toronto for the next three to four weeks to rehab the injury before returning to Sweden for the summer.

"My biggest concern right now is that I get healthy and my groin gets to where it's supposed to be. That's all I'm worried about," he said.

Coach Paul Maurice, his future in Toronto also cloudy, said he was uncertain what Sundin will do.

"Whatever decision Mats makes is absolutely the right one," he said.

"Because if he says he wants to play another year or two or three or four then he's going to be in great shape, he's going to be a great player and it's going to be absolutely the right thing for our team.

"And if he doesn't want to play the game any more, then he has absolutely earned that right and what a phenomenal career."

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