There was a time, not so long ago, when that wasn’t news. But after a miserable stretch in which the Maple Leafs lost eight straight games, lost 16 of their last 20 games and had their playoff hopes dwindled to near impossibility, this was water in the desert. It was a pulse beating in silence, a much-needed sign of life for the club’s joy-starved fan base.
But in this season of misery, that joy could only come amid suffering. And on Thursday night against the Anaheim Ducks, the Leafs suffered more. This time it came in the form of a brutal knee-to-knee collision that left Auston Matthews crumpled to the ice in the second period, which ultimately sent the captain down the tunnel and kept him out of this lineup for the foreseeable future.
“I didn’t like it,” John Tavares said of the crash after the Maple Leafs won 6-4. “He cuts him off pretty well. I thought it was dirty. … I’d like to think the league would look at it. It was out of my hands. Hopefully the right thing was done.”
The culprit was a villain all too familiar to Canadian hockey fans. Radko Gudas loved his recklessness on the ice as recently as the defenseman knocked Sidney Crosby out of the tournament at the Olympic Games a month ago.
“You know the guy. I think he’s done that quite often,” Matthew Knies said of the polarizing Ducks captain. “I think we have to look at it. I mean, our best player is going down.”
“This is a dirty play,” William Nylander added. “I think he’s done it a few times before.”
It was especially unfortunate for Matthews, who had sent home one just five minutes earlier, breaking a scoreless drought that had lasted nearly two months and 12 games.
The Ducks allowed him little time to celebrate his return. With just over four minutes left in the middle frame, Gudas got up after burying rookie Easton Cowan in the corner of the Anaheim zone and sprinted to Matthews after the captain took a pass from Nylander in the slot. Matthews cut to his right. Gudas stuck out his left knee and caught Matthews’ knee, and the defender clearly stretched out to clear No. 34.
Matthews fell to the ice in pain, remained with his head in his hands for a while, and was ultimately helped off the ice and down the tunnel. Berube did not provide an update on the centreman after the game, but did note that Matthews did not go to hospital on Thursday and will be assessed on Friday morning.
After fans were evacuated from the club’s locker room and out of the building, Maple Leafs veterans bemoaned their group’s lack of response following the hit while their captain lay on the ice in agony. No crowds formed around Gudas, no defenders dropped their gloves as they were escorted into the box, and no confusion was sparked by the attackers.
“It’s on me that I didn’t respond sooner about Gudas being there,” Rielly said. “It’s a dirty hit. I didn’t understand how bad it was at that moment, but I take full responsibility for not being first there or responding to it sooner. … Ultimately, when a captain goes down like that on a dirty play, you have to respond as a group. The responsibility for not being first after the hit is on me.”
Nylander echoed that sentiment.
“I didn’t really see what happened, I didn’t know the severity of it. I probably should have gone there,” he said. “At that point, I didn’t realize until 15 seconds later that something bigger than I thought was happening. I should have jumped in.”
There was a conversation in the locker room during the second intermission. Director Craig Berube wasn’t willing to share specifics. But what was said is clear. At that moment, no one felt the need to hold Gudas accountable, and it was inexcusable that he not only defended his teammate, but also simply showed fight while his captain lay on the ice.
So the following orders were given to the group: Come out a third time and save yourself. Show me some light.
“Just back off. Fight back,” Knies said of the message at the break. “We talked. Obviously, we wanted to take some licks at their best player. You know, it’s frustrating to see our best player go down like that. But we stayed the course and didn’t really do anything too stupid.”
“There were a lot of people here who were upset about what happened. I think we responded well to that in the third period. We were a lot better than we were on the play.”
They undoubtedly showed something in the last frame.
Just 30 seconds into the first half, Nylander scored Toronto’s third power-play goal to give the home team the lead back. Bo Groulx soon added to his short run, scoring his first Maple Leafs goal in just his second Maple Leafs game. It was his first NHL goal since November 2021 and the last goal scored by these very Ducks. Knies capped off an offensive run with an empty netter to complete a four-point night.
But it was off the scoresheet that the club found salvation in the eyes of their coach. Rielly went with Jeffrey Viel, Domi went after Beckett Sennecke, and rookie Easton Cowan dropped the gloves with Jackson LaCombe.
“Obviously we had to have four people to do something about it. That didn’t happen at the time, but I thought we responded to the third,” Berube said late Thursday night. The coach was particularly impressed with young Cowan’s participation in the game.
“It was great. There were a lot of things we talked about. I thought everyone went out there and did what we asked them to do in the third period – the Cowboys, getting involved, tracking down one of our best players.”
But more than anything, for Berube, the win was an indictment of the approach this group has taken on too many nights this season and the lethargic way they have navigated this disappointing campaign. Tonight, his Leafs showed they are capable of more, even if it was too late.
“It shows you need passion and emotion for the game to be successful,” Berube said of the club’s first win since early February. “It really is. We all know that. They played with passion and emotion in the third period.”
It won’t really matter where the Leafs go this season. Toronto still sits 11 points out of the playoffs after earning these two points. With 16 games still remaining in the year, their goal moving forward is simple.
“We need to build on that,” Rielly said. “I thought we had some pretty good things going tonight. Obviously the power play had a huge impact on the game. Obviously we got the win and that was important. So, you know, we’ve got to move forward. We’ve got to build.”
