William Nylander took a slashing minor against Florian Xhekaj on Saturday, and the Maple Leafs star let a kid fighting for a job pull him into it.
TSN put the word retaliation on the clip. That's the polite version of what happened out there.
Nylander carries an $11,500,000 cap hit, seventeenth highest in the entire league.
Xhekaj is on a camp roster trying to talk his way onto an NHL team. Completely different stakes.
He put 3 shots on net and finished at a -1 across 25:38. No points anywhere on the sheet.
Big minutes, big money, and the one line from his night that travelled anywhere was a penalty.
Toronto did kill it off. Montreal never scored a power play goal all evening.
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Florian Xhekaj gets under William Nylander's skin in heated Canadiens-Leafs clash
All four Montreal goals arrived at even strength or shorthanded. The Leafs penalty kill wasn't the issue here.
Phillip Danault scored twice, and one of those came while his own team was down a man.
Xhekaj walked out with 7 penalty minutes, an assist on the kill, and a +1 in 17:21 of work.
Darren Raddysh got Toronto's only goal with the extra man and led everybody in the building at 28:20.
Auston Matthews put 6 shots on net in his first game since knee surgery and logged 25:45.
Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 4 of 5 in his first Toronto look. Anthony Stolarz turned aside 15 of 17.
Toronto managed 25 shots on goal. Montreal answered with 29 at the other end.
Jake McCabe and Chris Tanev were the only two Leafs skaters to walk out of it even.
Ottawa comes to town Wednesday. Toronto still hasn't won a preseason game this fall.
So who actually came out ahead there? A star answering an agitator works like a millionaire arguing with a parking attendant. Even winning costs you something.
Nylander gets away with it in September. Xhekaj got exactly what he came for, and that's the part worth remembering in April.
Should William Nylander have ignored Florian Xhekaj instead of retaliating?
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