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TORONTO, CANADA – SEPTEMBER 29: Gavin McKenna #92 of the Toronto Maple Leafs playing in his first career NHL game, skates against the Montr\u00e9al Canadiens at Scotiabank Arena on September 29, 2026 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Chris Tanouye\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
The Toronto Maple Leafs squandered a 4-2 lead and fell 5-4 to the Buffalo Sabres in overtime on Thursday, October 15.<\/p>\n
The game featured several key talking points, including Kirill Marchenko\u2019s hat trick, Auston Matthews\u2019 strong performance, and some negative developments, such as John Tavares\u2019 injury and head coach Jim Hiller benching Gavin McKenna.<\/p>\n
The latter decision sparked significant controversy among fans, with some even calling for the coach to be fired for how he handled the prospect.<\/p>\n
The following day, on Friday\u2019s edition of \u201cThe Leafs Morning Take,\u201d<\/a> Nick Alberga and Jay Rosehill discussed the situation.<\/p>\n Rosehill, drawing on his experience as a former player, offered his analysis of why Hiller made the decision, while making it clear he disagreed with the head coach\u2019s approach.<\/p>\n Maple Leafs\u2019 Gavin McKenna Benching \u2018Got Away\u2019 From Jim Hiller, Rosehill Says<\/p>\n He said, \u201cOh look, here\u2019s my take on this thing. Jim Hiller got caught trying to teach Gavin McKenna a lesson, for lack of a better word.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn order for him to play on the top six lines, the top power play unit, he\u2019s going to have to show the coaching staff that he\u2019s understanding the defensive side of the puck and showing more responsibility. You play in Buffalo, you\u2019re in complete control of the game (\u2026) he says to himself, here\u2019s a great chance for me to sit Gavin down and have a little watch for a little while just to show him that I\u2019m serious.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd it completely got away on him. You know, you talk about the two penalties at the end of the second period, going through an entire intermission, and then you just can\u2019t get to him. And his response to it was kind of weak. It was his screw-up.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no two ways about it. No two ways about it. I don\u2019t like it. I didn\u2019t like it. I think the guy learns by playing more and watching video and talking to the coaches and talking to other players about what he\u2019s seeing out there and what can be different. That\u2019s fine. He\u2019s getting better every single game. But that got away from him. I understand what he was doing aside from the whole shutdown defense with the rest of the team. I understand what he was trying to do with Gavin McKenna. It got away from him. That\u2019s on him. And he kind of owned it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tManuel Meza<\/a> Manuel Meza is a sports journalist currently covering international soccer and the NHL for Heavy Sports. With a writing career launched in 2020, he has contributed to industry leaders like Athlon Sports, Sports Illustrated, and The Sporting News. More about Manuel Meza<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty TORONTO, CANADA – SEPTEMBER 29: Gavin McKenna #92 of the Toronto Maple Leafs playing in his first…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-885500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885500","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=885500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}