In the middle of the night, Simon Benoit darted out of his car in a Pearson Airport parking lot, unwilling to let his friend go easily.<\/p>\n
The Maple Leafs had landed in Toronto following a demoralizing 6-2 loss to the Rangers on Thursday. Bobby McMann had shifted uneasily in his seat on the flight. In less than 24 hours, the NHL\u2019s trade deadline would hit. The Leafs were in a tailspin, and players were going to be shipped out, with McMann \u2014 a pending UFA \u2014 the most likely to be traded.<\/p>\n
On the flight, a few Leafs veterans told McMann it was better to say his goodbyes and give his hugs in advance of the deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to say bye to you guys, because I\u2019m hoping I\u2019m still going to be here,\u201d McMann recalled saying to close friends Matthew Knies and Joseph Woll on the flight. \u201cThat was hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
McMann had not said goodbye to Benoit. Like most teammates, Benoit was bleary-eyed when he jumped into his car after the flight. He was ready to drive home before he also realized he had not said goodbye properly to his close friend.<\/p>\n
Benoit hopped out of his car and ran through a group of teammates and their cars to give McMann one last hug.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s never a bad time for a hug,\u201d McMann said. \u201cThose relationships will last a lifetime. Sometimes people underestimate the importance of good character and good people and the effectiveness that has a long career.\u201d<\/p>\n
The following day, the McMann-Benoit-Knies-Woll dinner crew, one of the Leafs\u2019 most loyal groups, lost a member. Once one of the more popular Leafs and a shining star of the Leafs organization\u2019s development model, McMann was shipped to the Seattle Kraken for two draft picks.<\/p>\n
In an exclusive one-on-one with The Athletic, McMann spoke at length about what he learned through his remarkable rise from the ECHL to the Leafs, how his tenure in Toronto ended and what he believed has gone wrong through a disastrous Leafs season.<\/p>\n
Bobby McMann was an afterthought when he joined the Leafs organization in 2020. He was one of four college free agents signed to AHL contracts. The other three players are all now playing in Europe, but McMann started on loan in the ECHL and kept learning, working and improving until he earned an NHL contract and became an everyday NHL winger.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to fight my way into a call-up, and then I was just trying to stick around,\u201d McMann said. \u201cI appreciated every opportunity I got there. Everything was put in front of me, I just had to grab it. I don\u2019t have any regrets about the time and work I put in there.\u201d<\/p>\n
When he stepped off the plane in Toronto on Thursday, he was fourth in Leafs goals with 19 in 60 games. In the final year of a two-year contract on a $1.35 million cap hit, McMann\u2019s production, speed and forechecking abilities made him a bargain\u00a0in the middle of a decent but sometimes inconsistent season.<\/p>\n
Like many Leafs, McMann found it difficult to find traction during a disappointing season. Asked why things went wrong for the Leafs this season after they won the Atlantic Division last year, McMann had no shortage of thoughts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of key players out of games early in the season. And then when you go through those games, you\u2019re not winning as much and then you get those players back and it\u2019s like, \u2018OK, we should be good.\u2019 But sometimes, the team isn\u2019t clicking where you want it to be,\u201d he said. \u201cThen you start trying to change things up a little bit. I think that\u2019s where you start to run into problems, instead of trusting the system.\u201d<\/p>\n
What did those problems look like?<\/p>\n
\u201cTrying to change the approach to the game. Whether that\u2019s systems, line combinations, guys trying to do different things on the ice because we\u2019re not finding success individually, you start to deviate from the game plan. You see it in games when you go down or any games where you\u2019ve had a few consecutive wins, you get disconnected,\u201d McMann said.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery team in this league is so exceptionally good that when you\u2019re not working as a cohesive unit all the time and you\u2019re disconnected, things can start to go south pretty quickly,\u201d he continued. \u201cI think guys were maybe overthinking things a little bit too much, thinking about \u2018OK, how do we get this back?\u2019 rather than trusting the process of the game plan in place at start of the year. Let\u2019s stick with what our systems and plan we\u2019ve been working at for quite a long time. We\u2019ve been working with these lines and combinations we had, to go through these situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ultimately, McMann understands that without results, changes needed to come.<\/p>\n
One of those changes manifested in a phone call from Leafs general manager Brad Treliving last Wednesday. Treliving told him in the afternoon that he couldn\u2019t risk McMann getting hurt. McMann\u2019s camp and the Leafs were still engaged in extension talks, but McMann wasn\u2019t going to play before the deadline.<\/p>\n
When did he realize he was not going to re-sign in Toronto and be traded?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe morning of deadline day,\u201d he said, the surprise still evident in his tone.<\/p>\n
McMann wanted lengthy term on an extension.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to stay there a little bit longer. And that wasn\u2019t happening,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
And so he wanted to sleep as long as possible on deadline day to avoid stress. He set his alarm for 10 a.m. but woke up well before that anyway: \u201cThere\u2019s no way I was getting back to sleep after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
He tried to go about his standard day-off routine, knowing he might get asked to play the next day. He rode the stationary bike, got into the sauna and tried to complete a mobility session.<\/p>\n
\u201cI usually enjoy that sort of stuff, but that day, I was just like, \u2018I can\u2019t,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Long before, McMann had booked a massage at 2:30 p.m. But as the deadline day continued without him getting traded, he wondered if he should continue with the massage half an hour before the deadline. He wanted to turn off his phone and tune out the outside world.<\/p>\n
McMann\u2019s agent advised him that doing so, um, might not be the best play. A sign-and-trade was a possibility, and McMann would need to be available to sign off on any kind of creative deal. And so he spent most of deadline day anxiously \u201cjust hanging out, watching my phone, watching other guys get traded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five minutes after the deadline passed, McMann\u2019s agent called: He was heading to Seattle.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople probably knew more online and on Twitter than I knew,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
McMann packed his bags and moved across the continent, leaving the only NHL organization he\u2019s known. He is heading to the newest NHL expansion franchise, leaving one of the most heavily scrutinized teams in the league.<\/p>\n
Is Toronto a difficult place to play?<\/p>\n
He hesitated for a long few seconds, considering the question.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it can be. When things aren\u2019t going well, it\u2019s that much harder to play there, I think,\u201d McMann said. \u201cWe\u2019re all human, and I think all NHL players at times get put on a pedestal. Everybody lets things get to them to a certain extent, some more than others.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen things aren\u2019t going well, a lot of us are so critical of ourselves already that then when you start hearing it from things like media, people around town, the people that you aren\u2019t as connected to, oftentimes you try and brush it off. But it\u2019s hard because you\u2019re human, and eventually it gets to you and it starts to wear on you. And you also understand the magnitude of the Leafs in that city and how important hockey is there. So I think a lot of the guys who were really big competitors wear that on their shoulders and wear the weight of the city on their shoulders a lot because of how important the sport is there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Did he? McMann did not score a goal during his 13 playoff games last season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like I tried not to as much as possible. But inevitably I did, especially in playoffs. I was feeling that a lot. Our playoff run last year, I really felt even more that the city\u2019s watching,\u201d he said. \u201cSo many people are riding on these playoffs and wanting us to do well and that\u2019s great and it feels so good to be there. That\u2019s why it\u2019s such a cool place to play and that\u2019s why I love playing in that city, is because everything mattered. People were paying attention to every little thing. But there\u2019s also the other side of it where you wear a lot of that pressure on yourself to try and bring success for that city.\u201d<\/p>\n
If success does come in Toronto, it won\u2019t come with McMann. He\u2019s earned the right to make a playoff push with Seattle, who currently sit in the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference. McMann\u2019s climb and past season should make him a boon to the Kraken\u2019s middle six.<\/p>\n
McMann is currently awaiting visa approval before he can suit up for his first Kraken game. When that happens, he\u2019ll be without close friends. But he\u2019ll also have another opportunity. He\u2019s made the most of those types of opportunities before.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to figure it out,\u201d McMann said, \u201cno matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the middle of the night, Simon Benoit darted out of his car in a Pearson Airport parking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,4831,99,1788],"class_list":["post-517385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-seattle-kraken","tag-sports","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}