Vaive: Don’t air the team’s dirty laundry on the bench
Postmedia News welcomes former Toronto captain and threetime 50-goal winger Rick Vaive to our 2024 Maple Leafs playoff coverage. Rick will break down each game in the Leafs-bruins series, today reviewing Game 4 and the tall task ahead.
I’ve had a heated discussion with a teammate during a game.
I also know what it’s like to be booed in Toronto, in a big game at your angriest and the season might be slipping away. Been there, done that.
But never, ever, have I seen it all play out right on the bench, on television, in a playoff game as on Saturday. It’s something you just don’t do.
If you’re mad at a guy — it happens in the heat of battle and as captain I had to both push some guys and calm others down — take it to the dressing room, in private or maybe take the guy out to lunch to talk it out.
But on the bench? Screaming and yelling at each other? In a game that important?
To me, it just seems weird. As other people have suggested, something like this could tear a team apart — or provide the moment that brings them closer together. It was just a surprise that William Nylander was the one most animated about it, because he’d not even been in the series the past three games.
I can sympathize with these Leafs. When I played in the ’80s, the attention on us was intense, but not two or three cameras pointed at our bench all the time. Microphones weren’t constantly picking up what we said and there wasn’t the social media stuff about all of it.
You want the Leafs to do well in this series, but if I had to sum it up in a few words, they’re just not good enough. I mean Boston blocked 27 shots, Jeremy Swayman was good but not fantastic and they had better special teams than the Leafs. You just feel the Bruins are in this to win.
I’m not saying the Leafs aren’t trying, but they’ve not had Nylander and now Matthews couldn’t finish Game 4. You hope Auston is over whatever illness he has with the two days off before Game 5, but he was wincing on the bench.
Nylander is the more puzzling case. I saw that press conference where he said his injury was “personal.” Now, I certainly don’t know exactly what’s bothering him, but when you say it’s personal, you’re leaving a lot out there for speculation that there’s more to this story.
Maybe say it’s upper or lower body and deal with it that way. But it’s playoff time and you aren’t willing to give the other team anything they can target.
The Leafs have to play a near-perfect Game 5 to keep this series going. Who to play in goal, Ilya Samsonov or Joseph Woll? And do they change a whole lot of other things in their lineup, being one loss away?
Taking a longer look, someone once said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again. Some of these guys have been together seven or eight years. Look at the money they’ve paid the top guys and they’ve only won one playoff round.
It leads me to believe if they don’t get out of this series, something significant will have to happen.
Vaive was captain of the Leafs for four years in the early 1980s, played 16 NHL and WHA seasons, is author of ‘Catch 22, My Battles in Hockey and Life,’ and can be heard on the Squid and The Ultimate Leafs Fan podcast with Mike Wilson and special guests.