{"id":396439,"date":"2026-01-08T16:25:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/396439\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T16:25:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T16:25:14","slug":"former-leafs-enforcer-reaves-suffers-knockdown-loss-in-spirited-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/396439\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Leafs enforcer Reaves suffers knockdown loss in spirited fight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former Toronto Maple Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves suffered a rare knockdown loss in a spirited fight with Blue Jackets bruiser Mathieu Olivier on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n<p>And while the always-popular Reaves gave a respectful nod to his opponent, he hinted that the real winner of the fight was the undefeated Father Time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m 38,\u201d the aging San Jose brawler stated after the game. \u201cI\u2019m getting a little older. Eventually I was gonna get caught \u2014 today was the day. We will get him back next time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">MATHIEU OLIVIER TAKES DOWN RYAN REAVES <\/p>\n<p>WHAT A FIGHT <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/IZ1VRNemVp\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/IZ1VRNemVp<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Sportsnet\/status\/2008768794005500048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 7, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Reaves and Olivier dropped the gloves and squared off in the dying seconds of the second period, exchanging furious right hands until Olivier nailed a helmet-less Reaves in the side of head, knocking the discombobulated Shark to the ice.<\/p>\n<p>A wobbly Reaves headed straight to the dressing room, but returned in the third period after undergoing concussion-protocol testing.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Ryan Reaves says tonight was the first time he&#8217;s been &#8220;caught&#8221; in a fight <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/1mAgMLcmHM\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/1mAgMLcmHM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sharks on NBCS (@NBCSSharks) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBCSSharks\/status\/2008788317081579845?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">January 7, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI had to memorize some words, cotton, honey, arrow I think was there,\u201d he told reporters after the game. \u201cThe months of the year backwards. I had to do some numbers games, some balance stuff, I passed with flying colours.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reaves, who played two unremarkable seasons in Toronto, called Olivier \u201cone of the toughest in the league\u201d and said it was \u201cthe first time I\u2019ve been caught and knocked down like that\u201d over his long career.<\/p>\n<p>The Sharks acquired Reaves\u00a0from the Leafs in a summer trade for defenseman\u00a0Henry Thrun.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Toronto Maple Leafs enforcer Ryan Reaves suffered a rare knockdown loss in a spirited fight with Blue&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-396439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}