Photo credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Long-time NHL enforcer and Maple Leafs forward Ryan Reaves has officially broken his silence on the Cedric Pare, Arber Xhekaj incident, following Patrik Laine injury.

Saturday’s game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs yielded some very unfortunate results, which included a season-ending injury for Patrik Laine following an unfortunate knee-on-knee collision with Cedric Pare.

Ryan Reaves was not dressed for the game, and was forced to watch the madness unfold just like the rest of us. Following practice on Monday, Reaves was asked by reporters for his thoughts on the Pare hit on Laine, as well as the chaos that unfolded afterwards with Arber Xhekaj. He had a lot to say on the matter, much of it surprising

“Obviously an unfortunate play. I know Pare wasn’t trying to do anything malicious. Feel for Laine, trying to reboot his career in a new city, just obviously an unfortunate play,” Reaves said.
 

 

 

The hit sparked enormous anger amongst the Montreal Canadiens and their fans and was the catalyst of Arber Xhekaj’s response– punching Pare in the back of the head several times while his gloves remained on. Pare refused to respond, resulting in a huge (and very unusual) 7-minute power play for the Maple Leafs. Reaves says he understood the response.
“He’s (Xhekaj) there to do his job and the league dealt with it the way they dealt with it… I’m sure everybody wished it was handled differently and obviously that the incident didn’t happen… Those things happen in hockey, it’s fast game,” Reaves said.

Xhekaj was fined by the league for the incident. Pare did not face any supplemental discipline for his hit on Laine, which has sparked a ton of controversy.

The incident led to a very rough outing for both clubs, including a scrap between Leafs defenceman Marshall Rifai and Montreal’s Juraj Slafkovsky. Reaves plans to give Rifai and other younger players some tips the next time things get ugly.
“I meant to grab Raffy but he got off the ice…I’ll grab him next practice,” Reaves said.Enforcers are very rare in today’s NHL, but it’s on nights like Saturday where they prove their worth. Unfortunately, as previously stated, Reaves was not dressed. Things may get real ugly when the puck drops on October 9th. Reaves is likely to be in the lineup that night, as it should be a chippy affair between the two heated Atlantic Division rivals.