Tavares injury looms over loss
Captain is stretchered out before Leafs drop Game 1 to Canadiens on late short-handed goal,
Whallopalooza.
When the bell rung on Game 1 of the opening round between Toronto and Montreal, it was expected that the Canadiens would spill out banging.
With no fans in the stands at Scotiabank Arena to ooh and wince. With Jack Campbell, playoff virgin, flung into the fray, opposite Carey Price. A post-season arriviste versus the wizened veteran and future Hall of Famer, although separated in age by only four years. And, ahem, 70 games.
With magnificent skill going mano a mano against the hardthumping beasties that the Canadiens have refashioned themselves, a total reversal of historical styles. The Flying Frenchmen of yore have morphed into more gravitybound proletariats — significantly shape-shifted from the team that busted out of the starting gate in January with a different fellow behind the bench — whilst whittled down to just a pair of Quebec-born players.
The two clubs had their fill of each other across a truncated season — 10 games contested in the jerrymandered North Division — and got playoff reacquainted for the first time since 1979.
What nobody had expected, what everyone cringed to see, was an accidental collision, Corey Perry’s knee flush against the face of John Tavares, and a ghastly scene of the Leafs captain crumpled on the ice, clearly losing consciousness briefly.
The eerie silence was an echo of a year ago and Jake Muzzin’s sickening injury, when he was knocked out of the series with Columbus.
Gingerly placed onto a stretcher and rolled away after a lengthy delay, with worried players hanging over the boards or skating aimless circles, Tavares lifted a thumb up. That was the most heartening sign, with no immediate word on the severity of any injury.
Solemnity drifted over the Leafs, the team understandably back on its heels and shortly thereafter down by a goal — Josh Anderson with a wrister over Campbell’s glove. Anderson had already tried to splat Wayne Simmonds against the glass, Simmonds deftly averting full-thrust impact.
Will finesse trump physicality? And does it matter when the Leafs take three penalties for sending the puck over the glass?
Toronto took it on the chin, 2-1, the winner coming on a short-handed goal by Paul Byron, for criminy sake, practically on his stomach, a tremendous individual effort. The Habs have a way with shorties; they scored nine of them in the regular season.
The Leafs lost the game, their captain and home-ice advantage.
They likely went home rather battered and bruised too, feeling the effects of all those hits distributed by Montreal, every Hab contributing at least one.
Hockey and hitting; they’re like peanut butter and jelly. Not a sandwich that pleases the Maple Leaf palate. No, the Leafs have more refined tastes.
Now Montreal, there’s a team that thrives on laying the body. The reconstructed Canadiens led the NHL over the regular season with 1,585 hits, or 28.30 per game. They had 321 against the Leafs in the regular season, the most by any team against any opponent. The Leafs? Near the bottom: 1,003 in 2021, 17.91 per game. Topping the thump charts for Toronto was Muzzin, at 101, the only player on the team to surpass the century mark. Montreal had three over 100, the banging parade driven by Josh Anderson (139) and Alex Romanov (138), who was benched.
These playoffs have been quite a slam ’n’ pound affair: 1,300 hits entering Thursday’s slate of matches, with more than 25 roughing penalties and a handful of fights, added to when Nick Foligno dropped the gloves with Perry, a consequence of the damage done to Tavares.
Those stats are exclusive of the illegal head whack Colorado’s Nazem Kadri delivered to St. Louis defenceman Justin Faulk on Wednesday. Which finds the combustible ex-Leaf facing a league disciplinary hearing that could result in a suspension of more than five games. Bellicosity has a fine edge, before tipping over into mayhem, the stuff that gives hockey — and the players involved — a black eye.
The Leafs, of course, had turned up their unbroken noses at such ogrish tendencies. Their ethos cleaved to elite skill over a pronounced physical dimension. That, purportedly, was the battle they could win. It was one explanation, however, for why they’ve been bounced out of the playoffs in the opening round in each of the last four years. GM Kyle Dubas, while he may still be esthetically averse, made a widely welcomed correction before this season began and at the trade deadline, adding sand to the roster, toughness in the likes of Zach Bogosian, Simmonds, Joe Thornton and Foligno.
There was lots of talk, in that interminable wait for these teams to finally get down to business, about how the Canadiens intended to impose their brutishness on the Leafs. To which the Leafs responded: Bring it on.
They did, throwing 55 hits, compared to Toronto’s 26. More pertinently, with impertinence, Montreal wrangled emotion and exploited just enough of the chances they had to discombobulate the Leafs. Price, just back from concussion, provided the ballast they needed, especially in the frantic final two minutes, with Toronto on a power play and Campbell on the bench for a sixth attacker.
An outcome overshadowed by what befell Tavares.
“It was horrible,” Foligno said afterward. “Life comes into play at that point. Just seeing how he was in pain. It made you sick to your stomach. You think about him as a family man. The game kind of takes a back seat, no matter the circumstances. You see someone in that much pain, unfortunate play like it was.”
Foligno had no apologies for his responding set-to with Perry, either, though he hadn’t actually seen the play.
“Our captain’s laying on the ice. It’s nothing more than that. Perry obliged. It’s unfortunate, I don’t think it’s malicious. But my captain’s lying on the ice. That’s our captain. I think we just addressed the situation and everybody moves on.
“It takes away any grey. It allows everybody to go back and play.”
An otherwise entertaining game, lively. But, as Foligno noted, ragged because of the sloppy power plays rendered.
“You can’t give teams life by giving them power plays. It was a really choppy game and nobody gets a feel for it. It takes away what we’re really good at, which is being a 5-on-5 team and dangerous on the puck. It just seemed like we were parading to the box, both teams really. No flow.”
It may have been hard to reset after Tavares was taken to hospital. But there was a definitive imperative to win it for Johnny Toronto, said Foligno.
“He’d want to continue on and try to win. That’s the unfortunate part. We didn’t get him a win tonight. That’s the part that stings the most.
“We’ll make sure we try to rectify that on Saturday.”