ANAHEIM, Calif. — Radko Gudas knew what was coming when the Toronto Maple Leafs arrived in town to play his Anaheim Ducks on Monday. It had been 18 days since Gudas’ knee-on-knee hit to Auston Matthews ended the season of the Toronto captain with a torn MCL.

Gudas, on the ice for the opening faceoff, immediately dropped his gloves as the puck dropped, as did Toronto’s Max Domi. Domi got the upper hand early and threw several punches as Gudas seemed more willing to absorb the blows.

Gudas, the Ducks’ captain, already has served a five-game suspension and, in advance of the teams’ first meeting since the hit, he fully expected on-ice retribution from the Leafs. It didn’t take long, on a strange night when Toronto took the ice just two hours after the announced firing of general manager Brad Treliving.

Gudas had expressed remorse for Matthews’ injury last week, but nobody expected things to end there. On Monday morning, Gudas — whose status for the game had been in question because of an injury — said, “I’m standing behind my own mistakes. I want to address it myself. That’s one of the reasons. Hundred percent. One of those games where I have to play.”

Rough play continued throughout the game. In the second period, Toronto’s Michael Pezzetta went after Gudas after he made a breakout pass deep in his zone. Pezzetta received a two-minute penalty for roughing, a 10-minute misconduct and a game misconduct. Later in the period, Gudas and Toronto’s Jake McCabe had a brief fight during a post-whistle scrum in front of the Toronto net. Gudas received an extra two-minute penalty for roughing. Domi also got tossed from the game after a second-period fight with Pavel Mintyukov.

Gudas’ five-game suspension was widely criticized for being too light. George Parros, who is head of the NHL’s Department of Player Safety and recently defended the process that led to the suspension, was in town for Monday’s game.

Presumably, that was to give a preemptive warning to both clubs not to have the game descend into something that would give the league a black eye. Ducks coach Joel Quenneville anticipated a physical game but also added a proviso. “Let’s be smart about it,” he said.

The Leafs opted not to declare their intentions before the game.

“We’re not gonna worry about just one player,” Morgan Rielly said Monday. “We have to go out and play well.”

Matthews underwent surgery to repair his MCL this month, with an expected recovery time of approximately 12 weeks. The repercussions of the play have lingered. The Leafs’ initial response to Gudas’ actions was absent, which caused a wave of backlash within the organization, with coach Craig Berube blasting his team privately during the intermission that followed the play and publicly after the game.

“We should’ve had four guys in there doing something about it,” Berube said.

Two of the players on the ice at the time of the collision — Rielly and William Nylander — spoke with regret about not confronting Gudas. And while the Leafs did deliver a fiery third period afterward, it wasn’t nearly enough to make up for not defending their captain more forcefully.

“Ultimately,” Rielly said that night, “when your captain goes down like that on a dirty play, you have to respond as a group. But I also take responsibility for not being the first one in there after the hit.”

Gudas’ suspension was his fifth in his 14-year career and his first since 2019. He’s also had 50 fights in the NHL, according to the website HockeyFights. Gudas missed the Ducks’ game on Saturday with an undisclosed lower-body injury but was on the ice for the morning skate on Monday.

“He’s a pro,” Quenneville said. “He’s played a lot of games. He knows the game, the competition. The way he plays. He pushes the envelope, and sometimes there’s some other things you’re going to answer to. And I think he knows that. He’s a pro, and he’s a good one. He wants to play and we’ll go.”

Ducks forward Jeffrey Viel, who fought Gudas this season while playing for the Boston Bruins, said, “He’s our captain, right? Like, he’s our leader. It shows that he’s a great leader and that he wants to play. He wants to get in there, and I respect that a lot.”