ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to do one thing to avenge Auston Matthews after they go to Radko Gudas and the Anaheim Ducks on Monday evening. There’s little doubt about that.
Whether that one thing means something now’s actually the query. Is it too late, in different phrases? Was the absent initial response to the Gudas knee-on-knee that ended their captain’s season (and would later require MCL surgical procedure) all that issues?
So a lot else has gone incorrect for the Leafs in this nightmare of a season, however that was the picture that may find yourself defining it, the second everybody will bear in mind years and years down the road.
The worst evening in the worst season in an extended, very long time. Nothing that occurs now will change that.
The backlash to the occasions of March 12, in addition to Gudas’ lacklustre five-game suspension, rippled throughout the league, with everybody from Matthews’ agent to Chris Pronger to the Tkachuk brothers to Connor McDavid weighing in.
It wasn’t simply an exterior backlash both, a type of controversies that bubbles and boils on the skin however is essentially inconsequential to these on the within of a workforce. There was inside backlash right here — not simply that evening, in the intermission chat that adopted the hit, however in the times and weeks since.
The Leafs — from administration to coaches to gamers — had been embarrassed by their failure to confront Gudas for his takedown of Matthews and have been making an attempt desperately to make up for it ever since.
There was the fiery third-period response on the evening of the incident, when William Nylander and Morgan Rielly — two of the 4 gamers on the ice on the time of Gudas’ knee, and in different phrases, two of the gamers who didn’t reply in the second — acquired feisty with Ducks not named Gudas (who had been ejected). There was additionally, extra memorably, rookie Easton Cowan (one other of the 4) combating in Nick Robertson’s defence.
The efforts at making amends continued the following week when Rielly cross-checked New York Islanders ahead Kyle MacLean instantly for crashing into Joseph Woll. Moments later, Rielly acquired right into a struggle with MacLean for what was solely his seventh profession tilt.
Asked afterward whether or not he felt stress to reply like that in the wake of what went down with Gudas solely days earlier, Rielly mentioned “pressure” wasn’t the appropriate phrase.
“But we’ve talked about it, and it’s at the front of our minds, just in terms of playing hard,” Rielly mentioned. “There’s no pressure on anyone to go out and do something that they’re not comfortable doing.”
Whether they’re snug or not, anyone in blue and white goes to confront Gudas — assuming the 35-year-old is certainly in the Ducks lineup after lacking his earlier recreation with an damage. If it’s to have even an opportunity at that means, that anyone can’t be Michael Pezzetta, a scrapper by nature who has suited up in 4 meaningless video games as a Leaf, or perhaps a first-year Leaf like Dakota Joshua.
It actually ought to be a type of 4 gamers on the ice when Matthews went down, and one of many three veterans in that bunch, not the 20-year-old Cowan.
It would imply essentially the most if it had been Rielly or Nylander standing as much as Gudas. They are the 2 longest-serving gamers on the workforce, the 2 gamers with essentially the most lasting ties to Matthews, the 2 gamers who spoke with regrets about their lack of response that evening, and the 2 gamers who aren’t confrontational by nature. A response now would resonate a lot extra coming from certainly one of them, as unlikely because it might sound with Nylander in explicit.
“Obviously, it’s going to be a game that means a lot for our side,” Nylander advised reporters in St. Louis over the weekend relating to the rematch with Gudas’ Ducks.
Still, will it truly imply one thing?
It definitely received’t make up for the absent response that evening. That received’t go away it doesn’t matter what. But doing one thing to avenge their fallen captain weeks later received’t imply nothing, both.
What a response now may do, particularly if it’s Rielly or Nylander — and even Brandon Carlo, the fourth participant on the ice on the time — is ship a message internally, even when it’s far too late, that that form of factor received’t ever occur once more. That now and in the long run, gamers on this workforce could have one another’s backs instinctively. It would lay the groundwork for subsequent season that means, a step towards a workforce that reveals extra pushback, extra resilience, extra fireplace in the face of … nicely, the whole lot.
Most of all, it could ship a message to the participant who issues most in all this: Matthews.
We haven’t heard from the Leafs captain but, however there’s no query that when he does converse, among the many questions on his need to stay a Leaf and Gudas’ actions that evening shall be no less than one about how his workforce didn’t reply whereas he lay crumpled on the ice at Scotiabank Arena.
How did he really feel about that?
Even a response that got here far too late, he would possibly say, was higher than one which didn’t come in any respect.
Is Bruce Cassidy the appropriate option to be the following coach?
We nonetheless don’t know but whether or not the Leafs will maintain Craig Berube as coach past this season, but it surely’s clearly exhausting to fathom given how badly issues have gotten below his watch.
The need to make a change ought to be that rather more attractive now that Bruce Cassidy, fired by the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday, is obtainable. (Pete DeBoer stays one other engaging choice.)
Simply put: If he’s keen, Cassidy is a no brainer for the Leafs. He has been among the many most persistently profitable coaches in the league for the final decade, ever since he changed Claude Julien because the coach of the Boston Bruins through the 2016-17 season.
The solely energetic NHL coaches with a greater profession factors share than Cassidy (.630) are Rod Brind’Amour (.658), Jon Cooper (.640), and Jim Montgomery (.631).
Bruce Cassidy is without doubt one of the most profitable energetic coaches in the league. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
Cassidy has guided two groups to the Stanley Cup Final, shedding as soon as with the Bruins in 2019 (to Berube’s St. Louis Blues in Game 7, oddly sufficient) and successful as soon as with Vegas in 2023. In different phrases, he’s no one-hit marvel.
His groups with the Bruins and Golden Knights had been typically good for 100-plus factors yearly, they by no means missed the playoffs, and they had been usually among the many NHL’s finest defensively and at controlling the play as measured by anticipated targets (two large sore spots below Berube).
So what occurred in Vegas this yr? Well, as is usually the case when a succesful coach is fired, examine the goaltending. And certainly, the Golden Knights have the worst five-on-five save share in the league this season, and fourth worst general. They additionally struggled to attain at occasions, even with you-know-who in the combination. Vegas nonetheless ranked fifth in the NHL with an anticipated targets mark of just about 53 % below Cassidy and was second finest league-wide in anticipated objective fee defensively.
Cassidy is considerate, methodical, inventive and would carry stability again to the Toronto bench. He’s the form of coach who, with some good upgrades to the roster in the offseason, could be able to guiding this workforce again into the playoffs subsequent season.
