It’s not often a road game on March 30th against the Anaheim Ducks is one that’s circled on the calendar, let alone when the Ducks are leading the Pacific Division and the Toronto Maple Leafs are about to miss the playoffs. But three weeks after Ducks defenceman Radko Gudas went knee-on-knee with Leafs captain Auston Matthews and ended his season, his teammates wanted revenge, and it took effect as soon as the puck dropped.
Max Domi was one of the players that spoke to the media following Matthews’ injury, and hinted that the team wouldn’t be forgetting about what happened. ‘Play em in a couple of weeks’ is what he said, verbatim. And as soon as the opening faceoff happened, Domi went right for Gudas and pummelled him to the ground. Gudas was expecting this, insisting on playing in this game despite not being at 100%, saying that he had to own up to his actions. And it wasn’t the last time he would be involved, either.
Michael Pezzetta went after Gudas in the second period and picked up two 10-minute misconducts in addition to his two-minute roughing penalty, resulting in his departure from the game. Domi double dipped on fights, dropping the gloves with Ducks defenceman Pavel Mintyukov and receiving a ten-minute aggressor minor and a boot from the game on top of his fighting major, and Jake McCabe tried to have a go with Gudas, too, before officials intervened and Gudas was eventually pulled from the game. The final tally? 61 penalty minutes for the Maple Leafs and 24 for the Ducks. It was the exact response Leafs fans wanted to see from their team, but it was perhaps too little, too late with their season all but guaranteed to end in the next two weeks.
Oh, and in the middle of all of this, William Nylander picked up four points en route to a 5-4 overtime win over the Ducks. Not a good night for tank commanders, good night for people who wanted fireworks.