Winnik ‘fortunate’ on hit, Leaf coach says
And if he sits any of his three righthanded blueliners — any of Roman Polak, Cody Franson and Stephane Robidas — then the coach is going back on his stated commitment to play D-men on their natural side.
Dion Phaneuf, the lefty captain, isn’t going to sit any time soon. So giving the street-clothes treatment to the franchise’s golden boy, Rielly, made just enough sense. Did it have its desired effect? In Colorado, when Carlyle had boasted of how he owned a bag of coaching techniques that could rid the club of its chronically lethargic first periods, the Avalanche needed precisely 31 seconds to get on the board. Even Colorado, which had only outshot three previous opponents in 13 tries, outshot the Leafs in a 4-3 shootout win.
It’s hardly a travesty that Rielly watched Thursday’s game from the pressbox. And Rielly appears welladjusted enough to cope.
“Ideally, maybe the coaches want to coach the Chris Prongers of the world . . . the big guys that know what to do and play it safe all the time,” Rielly said earlier this season. “Our group, our generation, likes to play a bit of a more up-tempo style . . . That can be tough on coaches.”
What didn’t seem as tough on Carlyle was coming to grips with what happened to Daniel Winnik. Judging by the reaction to Winnik’s feet-over-head tumble, most people watched various replays and, at the very least, winced. Not so Carlyle.
“The bad part was he was out of it. He didn’t move,” Carlyle said of Winnik. “And that left everybody gasping and going, ‘Huh-huh, what’s going on there.’ But after reviewing it, yeah, he did twist his neck, but the brunt of the weight of his body seemed to roll on his shoulder more and into his back. So he was lucky in that situation. Yeah, he banged his head. It’s never nice to see that. But I think he was fortunate.”
Say this for Carlyle: The realities of CTE research and concussion lawsuits don’t seem to have changed him much. Asked how Winnik looked in the wake of the hit, Carlyle said: “He looks fine. He’s 100 per cent fine. There’s nothing wrong with him . . . Those are situations where you’re expecting a lot worse and he wasn’t any worse for wear.” Now, one thing we’ve learned about concussions is that they’re impossible to assess from afar. Innocuous hits can produce head trauma whose symptoms linger for months. Car-crash-esque collisions can leave some athletes with no symptoms at all. But even given the Leafs’ history with erring on the side of decades-old machismo, it was alarming to hear Carlyle insist Winnik was “100 per cent fine.” Everybody hopes it’s the case. But nobody, not even a doctor, could possibly say such a thing with any certainty. Winnik, it should be said, did look stable on his feet and possessed of good spirits when he emerged from the dressing room on Thursday night. He smiled and chatted with friends. He also politely declined a request to be interviewed as he walked to the team bus. Ditto Phil Kessel, who left Thursday’s game with an undisclosed injury. Gardiner, meanwhile, was seen limping in the dressing room after suffering what Carlyle described as a bone bruise from a puck that found an equipment-less spot. It was another illustration of how Toronto’s defensive corps continues to take a pounding. They were a mess in their own end for key stretches out West. Gardiner coughed up a brutal turnover that led to Arizona’s opening goal on Tuesday. Polak and Percy appeared beyond slow when they were split for an Alex Tanguay breakaway marker on Thursday. And Percy offered far too little resistance as he was stripped of a puck to set up Matt Duchene’s go-ahead wraparound goal in the third period. No matter who mans the pressbox, no matter what buttons the coach pushes, the results remain sub-optimal. That seemed to be the gist of Carlyle’s overarching message. Whether he was taking a chunk out of Gardiner or banishing Rielly to the rafters, he continually made the point that keeping the puck out of net and zone is a team endeavour. As Carlyle said Thursday, in a comment that won’t take anyone aback: “I don’t think there’s (a Leafs defenceman) that couldn’t improve on the defensive side of the puck.”