So much else has gone wrong for the Leafs in this nightmare of a season, but that was the image that will end up defining it, the moment everyone will remember years and years down the line.<\/p>\n
The worst night in the worst season in a long, long time. Nothing that happens now will change that.<\/p>\n
The backlash to the events of March 12, as well as Gudas\u2019 lacklustre five-game suspension<\/a>, rippled across the league, with everyone from Matthews\u2019 agent<\/a> to Chris Pronger to the Tkachuk brothers to Connor McDavid<\/a> weighing in.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t just an external backlash either, one of those controversies that bubbles and boils on the outside but is largely inconsequential to those on the inside of a team. There was internal backlash here \u2014 not just that night, in the intermission chat that followed the hit, but in the days and weeks since.<\/p>\n The Leafs \u2014 from management to coaches to players \u2014 were embarrassed by their failure to confront Gudas for his takedown of Matthews and have been trying desperately to make up for it ever since.<\/p>\n There was the fiery third-period response on the night of the incident, when William Nylander and Morgan Rielly \u2014 two of the four players on the ice at the time of Gudas\u2019 knee, and in other words, two of the players who didn\u2019t respond in the moment \u2014 got feisty with Ducks not named Gudas (who had been ejected). There was also, more memorably, rookie Easton Cowan (another of the four) fighting in Nick Robertson\u2019s defence.<\/p>\n The efforts at making amends continued the next week when Rielly cross-checked New York Islanders forward Kyle MacLean right away for crashing into Joseph Woll. Moments later, Rielly got into a fight with MacLean for what was only his seventh career tilt.<\/p>\n Asked afterward whether he felt pressure to respond like that in the wake of what went down with Gudas only days earlier, Rielly said \u201cpressure\u201d wasn\u2019t the right word.<\/p>\n \u201cBut we\u2019ve talked about it, and it\u2019s at the front of our minds, just in terms of playing hard,\u201d Rielly said. \u201cThere\u2019s no pressure on anyone to go out and do something that they\u2019re not comfortable doing.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether they\u2019re comfortable or not, somebody in blue and white is going to confront Gudas \u2014 assuming the 35-year-old is indeed in the Ducks lineup after missing his previous game with an injury. If it\u2019s to have even a chance at meaning, that somebody can\u2019t be Michael Pezzetta, a scrapper by nature who has suited up in four meaningless games as a Leaf, or even a first-year Leaf like Dakota Joshua.<\/p>\n It really should be one of those four players on the ice when Matthews went down, and one of the three veterans in that bunch, not the 20-year-old Cowan.<\/p>\n It would mean the most if it were Rielly or Nylander standing up to Gudas. They are the two longest-serving players on the team, the two players with the most lasting ties to Matthews, the two players who spoke with regrets about their lack of response that night, and the two players who aren\u2019t confrontational by nature. A response now would resonate so much more coming from one of them, as unlikely as it might seem with Nylander in particular.<\/p>\n \u201cObviously, it\u2019s going to be a game that means a lot for our side,\u201d Nylander told reporters in St. Louis over the weekend regarding the rematch with Gudas\u2019 Ducks.<\/p>\n Still, will it actually mean something?<\/p>\n It certainly won\u2019t make up for the absent response that night. That won\u2019t go away no matter what. But doing something to avenge their fallen captain weeks later won\u2019t mean nothing, either.<\/p>\n What a response now could do, especially if it\u2019s Rielly or Nylander \u2014 or even Brandon Carlo, the fourth player on the ice at the time \u2014 is send a message internally, even if it\u2019s far too late, that that kind of thing won\u2019t ever happen again. That now and in the future, players on this team will have each other\u2019s backs instinctively. It would lay the groundwork for next season that way, a step toward a team that shows more pushback, more resilience, more fire in the face of \u2026 well, everything.<\/p>\n Most of all, it would send a message to the player who matters most in all this: Matthews.<\/p>\n We haven\u2019t heard from the Leafs captain yet, but there\u2019s no question that when he does speak, among the questions about his desire to remain a Leaf and Gudas\u2019 actions that night will be at least one about how his team didn\u2019t respond while he lay crumpled on the ice at Scotiabank Arena.<\/p>\n How did he feel about that?<\/p>\n Even a response that came far too late, he might say, was better than one that didn\u2019t come at all.<\/p>\n Is Bruce Cassidy the right choice to be the next coach?<\/p>\n We still don\u2019t know yet whether the Leafs will keep Craig Berube as coach beyond this season, but it\u2019s obviously hard to fathom given how badly things have gotten under his watch.<\/p>\n
![\"Bruce](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/GettyImages-2253386802-scaled.jpg\")
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