Why did Gavin McKenna get benched?
Much has been made about the final result in The Six on Thursday night, and why one of the team’s young stars was stapled to the pine when the game was on the line.
One thing that started to catch people’s eyes on Thursday night, when the Toronto Maple Leafs faced off with the rival Buffalo Sabres, was that Gavin McKenna wasn’t getting any ice time in the third period. It was even more noticeable after the Maple Leafs blew a two-goal lead to their Atlantic Division rivals that McKenna wasn’t thrown on the ice in the waning minutes of the third or overtime to help Toronto get the win. Instead, a gassed Leafs team squandered an extra point, dropping a 5-4 decision to the Sabres.
Leafs head coach Jim Hiller didn’t hide from the questions after the loss, noting that McKenna was in fact benched, much to the ire of media and fans alike.
On Friday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Jeff Marek joined Tyler Yaremchuk and Carter Hutton to explain why McKenna was benched in the last two periods on Thursday night.
Jeff Marek: Jim Hiller’s not stupid. You may question the way he coaches tactically, and that’s fine. But at the end of the day, he’s not a stupid person. So, I think we’re missing a piece of the puzzle here. … I don’t buy the goofy janitor, ‘Oh, I just sort of lost track of it.’ I don’t buy any of that. I think this is a case where, and I don’t know what it is or what it could be, but this is a coach sending a message to a young player, but then diving on the grenade so the player doesn’t get hounded by it. I think Hiller is very sensitive. He does not want to start a fire right now around Gavin McKenna, the first overall pick.
We all know how those things end up for head coaches here right now. So, I think it’s a delicate dance that Hiller is doing here, wanting to send a message to the kid for whatever reason, and that’s the piece that we don’t know. Yet, at the same time, trying to make sure that afterwards he’s shielded. This is just part of the growing pains of being an 18-year-old player in the NHL, and I think that he’s doing what most senior coaches would do. Don’t embarrass the player publicly…you kind of already have with the benching. Just don’t make it worse. Get to the next game.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…
