Leafs hate rooted in ‘jealousy:’ Kerfoot
West Van product says extra attention paid to Toronto is what really riles up Canucks fans
Players returning to their hometown always insist “it’s just another game.” Sure, there are a few more faces in the crowd they’d recognize, but players more often than not whip out the well-travelled cliches that they’re used to playing on the road, in a hostile environment and so on.
Count Toronto Maple Leafs forward Alex Kerfoot in that group.
“Anytime I come back to Vancouver, it’s a lot of fun,” he said before Tuesday’s tilt against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena. “But at the end of the day, it’s just another game.”
Kerfoot, though, can’t deny his backstory has some unique twists to it. He grew up in West Vancouver and often went to GM Place and then Rogers Arena as a fan. He counts the run to the 2011 Stanley Cup final as a good memory along with witnessing the West Coast Express years.
He’s played in Vancouver before, but that was with the Colorado Avalanche. The difference this time around is he knows how fans feel about the Leafs. With all due respect to the Avs, the crowd in Vancouver
doesn’t get as emotional when they visit Rogers Arena.
The Leafs produce a whole different vibe. There’s the diehard Toronto fans who have paid a pretty penny to be in the stands, clad in blue and white, and there’s the extra emotions Canucks fans have about a Toronto visit, which is almost always one of vociferous anti-Leafs passion.
Kerfoot insisted he wasn’t part of that vocal majority.
“I was never one of those guys who just hated the Leafs. I was obviously a Canucks fan, but at the end of the day, I think a lot of the Canuck hate is jealousy. At the end of the day, they (the Leafs) get more attention and so people are upset about that.”
NO WORRY ABOUT TEMPO
The Leafs under coach Sheldon Keefe are focused on holding onto the puck as an offensive strategy, but also as a defensive counter. They reason that the more you have the puck, the less the other team has it, limiting the rival’s attacking/scoring opportunities.
It’s an approach that the Canucks, under bench boss Travis Green, have been employing as well.
Leafs star Auston Matthews insisted his team doesn’t like getting into end-to-end free-for-alls.
“I think that’s kind of our job to not let it happen, not let it get into a free-for-all,” he said.
Elias Pettersson of the Canucks likes how his team has been playing under the coach’s system.
“We’re playing the way we want, we’re working hard,” he said. And he was relishing the chance to go up against the like of Matthews.
“I enjoy it, I like to play against the best, to play against really good players and Toronto (has) a lot of them,” he said.
SUTTER ‘NOT QUITE READY’
It seemed Monday like Brandon Sutter was set to make his return to the Canucks lineup Tuesday after a month on the injury shelf, but that will have to wait until at least
Thursday, when the Canucks host the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Canucks will have to make a roster move to get Sutter on the active roster. He’s currently on long-term injured reserve and to activate him the team will have to clear some cap space. That can be done in the short term by moving Tyler Motte and Tyler Graovac to LTIR.
Motte has been out long enough for that to be a retroactive move, while Graovac is likely to be out long enough — 10 games is the minimum requirement — for the Canucks to put him there.