{"id":532973,"date":"2026-03-13T04:52:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/532973\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T04:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T04:52:26","slug":"leafs-rielly-takes-full-responsibility-for-not-intervening-after-gudas-hit-on-matthews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/532973\/","title":{"rendered":"Leafs\u2019 Rielly takes \u2018full responsibility\u2019 for not intervening after Gudas hit on Matthews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">There was plenty of criticism about the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" href=\"https:\/\/theleafsnation.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" hreflang=\"en\">Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a>\u2018 response to their captain\u2019s injury (or lack thereof).<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">However, no one seems to be taking it harder than one of the team\u2019s veterans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">After the Leafs came away with a 6-4 win over the <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/teams\/anaheim-ducks\/line-combinations\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Anaheim Ducks<\/a> on Thursday night, Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly was asked about how the team\u2019s lack of emotion after <a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" hreflang=\"en\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailyfaceoff.com\/news\/anaheim-ducks-radko-gudas-ejected-knee-on-knee-hit-injury-toronto-maple-leafs-auston-matthews-nhl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">forward Auston Matthews was taken out <\/a>by Ducks defenseman Radko Gudas late in the second period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Rielly mentioned that he and his teammates didn\u2019t realize how bad the hit was at first glance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tweet-body_root__YlarM\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"auto\">Morgan Rielly says he takes \u201cfull responsibility\u201d for not responding in the moment after Gudas hit Matthews and that he didn\u2019t realize how bad the hit was at first.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">\u201cI didn\u2019t have a good view of it just because the puck was going another way,\u201d Rielly said. \u201cBut it\u2019s on me for not responding earlier to Gudas being there. Obviously, it\u2019s a dirty hit. I didn\u2019t understand how bad he got him in the moment. But I take full responsibility for not being the first to get in there or being there quicker to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">The play in question came with a few minutes to go in the second period. Matthews had the puck in the slot in the offensive zone and looked to juke past an oncoming Gudas. When the Toronto center lunged to get out of the way, Gudas\u2019s leg was out, taking out Matthews\u2019 left leg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Matthews was in obvious distress after the play and limped off the ice. Gudas was assessed a five-minute major for kneeing and a game misconduct.<\/p>\n<p class=\"tweet-body_root__YlarM\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"auto\">Auston Matthews had to leave the game after this knee on knee hit from Radko Gudas.<\/p>\n<p>Gudas was given a game misconduct 5 minute major<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">Rielly gingerly skated over and grabbed Gudas with a rather soft hug, rather than taking a more intense exception to the Toronto captain being knocked down with a dangerous play. It further adds to the narrative that has hovered over the Leafs for years: that the team lacks the toughness and emotion a true championship contender requires. There have been multiple instances where Toronto has failed to force its opponents to answer the bell after going after the team\u2019s top players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg\">The Leafs later announced that\u00a0<a class=\"text-secondary underline underline-offset-2\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/LeafsPR\/status\/2032258896497136090?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" hreflang=\"en\">Matthews wouldn\u2019t return to the game<\/a>\u00a0due to a lower-body injury. He scored his 27th goal of the season earlier in the period to kickstart a comeback, as Toronto was trailing 2-1 earlier in the frame. He logged 13:18 of ice time across 14 shifts, posting two shots on goal, along with delivering a hit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was plenty of criticism about the Toronto Maple Leafs\u2018 response to their captain\u2019s injury (or lack thereof).&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-532973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532973","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=532973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}