Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
There’s been a lot of talk about the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Ryan Reaves and fighting in the past week, but very little impact.
Last Saturday, with the Leafs trailing early in the third period against the Montreal Canadiens, Reaves tried to fight Habs defenseman Arber Xhekaj. But Xhekaj wanted no part of it, pointing to the scoreboard – and setting himself up to be ridiculed when the Leafs scored seven unanswered goals to ultimately win by a 7-3 score. No fight amped up the Buds, nor was there a motivated Canadiens team that buried the Leafs under more offense.
Meanwhile, in the Leafs’ 5-1 loss to Columbus Wednesday, Reaves was in a different situation. The game was just a minute-and-a-half old when Reaves and Mathieu Olivier decided to throw down. With no clear winner or loser of the fight, neither side gained an advantage. The game’s first goal came 14 minutes later at the other end of the first period.
In short, it was a fight for the sake of a fight. Even Leafs captain Auston Mathews remarked afterward that the crowd at Scotiabank Arena wasn’t energized by the fight that they saw. (To be fair, Matthews did say the Leafs bench got energy from Reaves’ fight, but to be equally fair, that energy did not translate into anything but losing 5-1.)
In both cases involving the Maple Leafs, a fight, or a lack thereof, did not move the needle in a positive direction. There was no momentum change, no swing in emotions, no decided advantage one way or another. The crowd was quiet. In other words, it was all very much ado about nothing, and from this writer’s perspective, it’s no wonder the NHL no longer heavily promotes fights as part of its entertainment package.
It would be one thing if you could always clearly identify which teams have benefitted from their players fighting. But that’s simply not the case in the modern game. It’s like the “hockey code” some people often refer to – when you really break it down, you see that there’s no “there” there. It’s all about justifying what some people achingly want to justify, and some of us aren’t willing to make the intellectual stretch that gets us there.
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There’s a reason why there aren’t many players like Reaves in the NHL anymore – they’re part of a bygone era, forever chasing the approval of the rest of the league. Reaves even said earlier in the week there just haven’t been many takers for a fight with him this season, either due to being out of the lineup at the wrong time or injuries. But really, it’s because NHL teams employ few heavyweight fighters.
For all of his 30 games this season, Reaves has only one fight, and he’s averaging just 7:28 of ice time – his lowest total since 2017-18, when he averaged 6:45 per game. While Olivier has 10 goals and 18 points, Reaves has two assists.
Reaves doesn’t have to turn into the next coming of Wayne Gretzky to have an impact on the game. Even his 20 points in 2018-19 with the Vegas Golden Knights showed he can bring another element to his game. Playing more than 900 NHL games deserves a ton of respect.
But right now, his biggest area of influence isn’t really influential right now. People can argue otherwise if they so choose, but an estimation of what Reaves is best at underscores the ebbing of fighting’s place in the sport.
It’s no longer a question of whether or not fighting substantially motivates teams to play well – and it hasn’t been a question for a while now. It’s a facet of the sport whose importance will continue to fade.
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