Though the Toronto Maple Leafs had a physical response in the third period in their 6-4 win over the Anaheim Ducks, the team's lack of response following the injury of their captain, Auston Matthews, was glaring.
The Toronto Maple Leafs may have beaten the Anaheim Ducks on Thursday night, but they were also forced to face a grim reality that many outside their room had been harping on for years: The team's culture just isn't good enough.
That was all laid bare late in the second period when Anaheim defenseman Radko Gudas caught Toronto captain Auston Matthews with a knee-on-knee hit, the type that will almost certainly garner a suspension from the NHL.
With Matthews down on the ice in pain, none of his teammates went after Gudas. It wasn't quite as bad as Buffalo's infamous non-response to Milan Lucic running over Ryan Miller years ago, but it wasn't far off, either.
If you can't stick up for your injured captain, then what are you even doing here?
"It's on me for not responding," Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly said, who was on the ice when Gudas hit Matthews.
"It's a dirty hit. I didn't understand how bad he got him in the moment, but I take full responsibility for not being the first one in there or being quicker to respond. When your captain goes down on a dirty play, you have to respond as a group, but I take responsibility for not being the first one in there after the hit."
Rielly wasn't alone in his contrition after the game.
"I didn't know the severity of it, and I should have probably gone in there," William Nylander said. "But at the time, I didn't understand until 15 seconds later that it was more than what I thought it was. Yeah, I should have jumped in there."
Just imagine what a Stanley Cup-level team would have done in the same situation. Heck, the Tampa Bay Lightning have started line brawls with opponents for even breathing on Andrei Vasilevskiy. The Florida Panthers have the same gang mentality, too.
But not the Leafs. In fact, there was another incident against Anaheim before Toronto decided to step up: Chris Kreider cross-checked Calle Jarnkrok in the head off a faceoff early in the third, and the only punishment he got was from the refs.
Finally, Michael Pezzetta - who, ironically, fought Jeffrey Viel off the opening faceoff and didn't see much ice time because of all the other penalties in the game - took a couple runs at Jackson LaCombe.
Max Domi was booted for chasing around Ducks rookie Beckett Sennecke. Matthew Knies trucked Mikael Granlund, while Rielly and Nylander both threw uncharacteristically big hits.
Post-game, a clearly perturbed coach Craig Berube gave his team partial credit for the delayed response to the Matthews injury.
"We should have four guys in there doing something about it, but it didn't happen," he said. "But I thought we responded in the third. We would have liked everybody to get in there right away."
Berube confirmed that he spoke to the team during the second intermission and noted that the players also had words for each other.
The evening culminated in the most unlikely of tilts as flyweight Toronto rookie Easton Cowan started a fight with LaCombe, much to the delight of his Leafs teammates.
"That was awesome," Nylander said. "I was loving every second of it."
The fact that Toronto won the game 6-4 capped off an incredibly strange night. Anaheim dominated in the first period, and the Leafs were lucky to be down only 2-1. But sizzling special teams, including multiple power play goals and a shortie from Bo Groulx, pushed the Leafs out front, and they never relinquished the lead. It would turn out to be their first win since the Olympic break ended.
Craig Berube (John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images)The funny thing is, the Leafs would do better to lose right now, since they're not going to make the playoffs and need to draft in the top five to use this year's pick, which otherwise will go to the Boston Bruins as part of the Brandon Carlo trade.
The question is: Will they learn from this? And perhaps even more starkly, how many of these players will even be on the Leafs long-term? Toronto was already a mess this season, and speculation about who will be coaching, running and playing for the organization in the future is very much grist for the rumor mill.
Berube knows what it takes to win a Cup, since he did it with a heavy, playoff-style St. Louis Blues team back in 2019. If the Leafs are going to build a culture that actually works, they will have to be the team that showed up midway through the third period, not the one that stood around gawking at their fallen captain in the second.
"It shows that you need passion and emotion in the game to be successful," Berube said. "We all know that. And they played with passion and emotion in the third period."
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