The score to settle with the Anaheim Ducks over the Auston Matthews injury shouldn’t start and end with the Maple Leafs sending a willing combatant over to drop the gloves with Radko Gudas, if he plays.
Sure, it can be one part of it, should Gudas actually dress, but it’s not even the most important part.
A fight with Gudas doesn’t offset an injury like the Matthews one — a blown MCL necessitating surgery, which wasn’t even the worst-case scenario after the type of hit that occurred. To be fair, nothing truly offsets the Matthews injury, but simply fighting Gudas doesn’t even come close. A bout against Michael Pezetta or Dakota Joshua means absolutely nothing to a character such as Gudas, who has a screw loose and eats glass for breakfast. The Leafs need to make sure other players on the Ducks, including their star players, feel the repercussions, while knowing that Gudas is ultimately responsible. As George Parros watches on from the stands tonight, they also need to make the league regret their decision not to handle this appropriately with player discipline, as a five-game suspension after a blown MCL on a superstar player is not even close to squaring the accounts.
Repeated runs need to be made at the skilled players on the Ducks. Players on the Ducks who want nothing to do with a fight should be fighting tonight. Remind the Troy Terrys and Jackson Lacombes, after they’re crumpled into the boards, that it’s Radko’s fault. Hell, point up toward Parros in the stands on the way to the penalty box afterward.
Some might believe otherwise, but to me, it’s highly unlikely Gudas is playing up his injury or actually wants to duck this game. He’d probably happily settle the score, especially if it means the two teams can all move on with their lives afterward. But the Leafs should not be moving on yet. It’s a harsher revenge on the Ducks’ captain if the actual talent on his team bears the brunt of what he did. It’s the only response that would even approach levelling the score for an incident of the magnitude of the Matthews injury.
Frankly, whether Gudas dresses or not shouldn’t matter all that much to the Maple Leafs. It might actually be sweeter revenge if Gudas is made to watch it all from the press box. Further, fighting Gudas is a response; running over a Ducks star is initiating, and the Leafs as a team need to start initiating, not simply responding after they’re wronged (see: Panthers vs. Leafs in the playoffs circa 2023 and 2025).
The Leafs have tried to show signs of stick-togetherness since the initial lack of response to the Matthews incident, which took the hockey world by storm in an embarrassing fashion, leaving Cup winners and legendary warriors of the game speechless when commenting on it in the media. While they’ll never get a do-over on it, here is a chance to at least atone for the sin, to some degree. This should not be about Dakota Joshua — big, strong, and willing, but not much of a fighter — dropping the gloves with a random player on the Ducks for a forgettable 50/50 fight before the teams move on to play any other game #74 of a long season. One measly ceremonious fight is not what’s called for tonight.
The Leafs didn’t respond properly in the moment, and they once again got no help from the league afterward. They have nothing to lose in the standings. They can’t erase their lack of an initial response, but they can raise a stink on the ice (which their GM and coach chose not to do in the media), to the dismay of the league and the Ducks franchise. For an organization that has taken too many Ls lying down, it’s time to finally show some teeth.