Darren Raddysh’s sloppy penalty cost Leafs

There are so many moments in games that can lead to a change in momentum. For the Toronto Maple Leafs, a costly penalty hurt them on Tuesday night.

Just past the halfway mark of the third period of a matchup between the Maple Leafs and Utah Mammoth, Leafs defenseman Darren Raddysh got carried away in a battle with Mammoth forward Barrett Hayton. The two were battling behind the play with Raddysh, having already knocked Hayton to the ice, took liberties with the opposing player, leading to a minor penalty for cross-checking.

That led to Nick Scmaltz scoring on the ensuing power play, leading to a 3-2 victory for the visiting Mammoth, erasing a chance for Toronto to for overtime.

On Wednesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton give their thoughts on Raddysh’s infraction that cost Toronto a chance of, at least, picking up a point.

Tyler Yaremchuk: He gives him one shot, two shot, and then the third one, the arm goes up. I get that Leafs fans maybe sit there and say like, ‘Hey, it’s hockey. There’s going to be shoving matches like this all the time.’ He gets away with kind of the first one, and he gets away with honestly with Hayton going to the ground. It’s that second shot when you have a guy down and you’re standing up. Like, if they’re both on the ground and they’re shoving each other, it’s not a penalty, but it’s kind of that Raddysh is up on top of him and then takes that shot down. I didn’t think this was a bad call at all. This is a situation where Darren Raddysh has to know final three minutes of a tied hockey game. A win’s more important than getting your licks in on a guy.

Carter Hutton: It’s that moment in the game, and it’s I think the way the game is called to, its like situational, too. Where, if there’s a brawl going on, you might get that extra whack in the belt to call. But when it’s something like that, and you are the standing player, like players in kind of a helpless position where you can smash them off the ice, it’s one of those ones where there’s a grey area. … It’s got to be situational, right? You’re in a 2-2 hockey game against a really good team that has one of the best power plays in the league, and it ends up costing you late in the game, and then you’re just not able to create anything after. I think that was the biggest takeaway. You could hear Jim Hiller talk about it after the game. There was a disappointment in it, but Raddysh owned it. Raddysh said right away to the media that it was a dumb penalty that I truly did that. That being said, you got to find a way to bank points in a tie hockey game on home ice.

You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…