Matthew Knies<\/a> said of the polarizing Ducks captain. \u201cI think it should be looked at. I mean, it\u2019s our best player going down.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s a dirty play,\u201d William Nylander added. \u201cI think he\u2019s done a few of those before.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a particularly unfortunate turn of events for Matthews, who only five minutes earlier had wired home a one-timer and snapped a goalless drought that had dragged on for 12 games and nearly two months.<\/p>\n
The Ducks allowed him little time to celebrate his return to form. With just over four minutes remaining in the middle frame, Gudas got to his feet after burying rookie Easton Cowan in the corner of Anaheim\u2019s zone, and sprinted over to Matthews as the captain received a pass from Nylander in the slot. Matthews cut right. Gudas threw out his left knee and caught Matthews\u2019 own, the defenceman clearly extending himself to take No. 34 out.<\/p>\n
Matthews dropped to the ice in pain and remained down for some time, his head in his hands, before ultimately being helped off the ice and down the tunnel. Berube offered no update on the centreman post-game, but noted Matthews did not go to the hospital Thursday, and would be evaluated Friday morning.<\/p>\n
In the club\u2019s locker room, after the fans had filtered out of the building, the Maple Leafs’ veterans lamented the lack of response from their group in the wake of the hit, as their captain lay on the ice in agony. There was no crowd formed around Gudas, no gloves dropped as the defender was escorted to the box, no chaos unleashed on the offender whatsoever.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s on me for not responding earlier to Gudas, being there,\u201d Rielly said. \u201cIt\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 one in there, or being in there quicker to respond. \u2026 Ultimately, when your captain goes down like that on a dirty play, you have to respond as a group. I take responsibility for not being the first one in there after the hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nylander echoed the sentiment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t really see what happened, I didn\u2019t know the severity of it. I should\u2019ve probably gone in there,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the situation, at the time, I didn\u2019t really understand until 15 seconds later that it was more than what I thought it was. I should\u2019ve jumped in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a conversation had in that locker room in the second intermission. One that head coach Craig Berube wasn\u2019t willing to share specifics about. But it\u2019s clear what was said \u2014 that no one felt compelled to hold Gudas accountable in the moment, to not only defend their teammate but also simply show some fight as their captain lay on the ice, was inexcusable.<\/p>\n
So, it was put to the group: Come out in the third and redeem yourselves. Show some fire.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust push back. Fight back,\u201d Knies said of that intermission message. \u201cWe talked. Obviously we wanted to get some licks on their top players. You know, it\u2019s frustrating seeing our best player go down like that. But we stayed on course and didn\u2019t really do anything too stupid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a lot of guys in here upset about what happened. I think we did a good job responding to that in the third period, much better than we did at the time of the play.\u201d<\/p>\n
They no doubt showed something in the final frame.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thirty seconds into the period, Nylander potted Toronto\u2019s third power-play goal of the night, restoring the home side\u2019s lead. Bo Groulx added a short-handed tally soon after, scoring his first Maple Leafs goal in his second Maple Leafs game \u2014\u00a0his first NHL goal at all since November 2021, the last one scored for these very Ducks. Knies capped off the offensive performance with an empty-netter, completing a\u00a0four-point night.<\/p>\n
But it was away from the scoresheet that the club found redemption in their coach\u2019s eyes \u2014\u00a0Rielly got into it with Jeffrey Viel, Domi went after Beckett Sennecke, rookie Easton Cowan dropped the gloves with Jackson LaCombe.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously we should\u2019ve had four guys in there doing something about it. It didn\u2019t happen then. But I thought we responded in the third,\u201d Berube said late Thursday night. The coach was particularly impressed with young Cowan getting into the mix.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great. It was a lot about what we talked about. I thought everybody went out and did what we asked in the third period\u00a0\u2014\u00a0including Cowboy, getting involved, going after one of their best players.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than anything else, though, for Berube, the win was something of an indictment of the approach this group has taken on too many nights this season, of the listless manner in which they\u2019ve floated through this disappointing campaign. On this night, his Leafs showed they have the capacity for something more, even if it\u2019s come far too late.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt shows that you need passion and emotion in the game to be successful,\u201d Berube said of this win, the club\u2019s first since early February. \u201cIt really does. We all know that. They played with passion and emotion in the third period.\u201d<\/p>\n
It will matter little in terms of where these Leafs go this season, Toronto still sitting 11 points out of the playoffs after claiming these two points. For those in the room, who have 16 games still to play out on the year, the goal moving forward is simple.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to build off it,\u201d Rielly said. \u201cI thought there were some pretty good things tonight \u2014\u00a0 obviously the power play had a big impact on the game. Obviously we got the win, which was important. So, you know \u2014 onward. We have to build.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There was a time not long ago when that was hardly news. But after a miserable stretch that\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[163,165,164],"class_list":["post-218405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}