Max Domi fights Radko Gudas, Maple Leafs beat Ducks in OT

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The Maple Leafs got their revenge on Radko Gudas on Monday night.

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And it didn’t take long.

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Three seconds after the opening faceoff between the Leafs and Anaheim Ducks at the Honda Center, Max Domi and Gudas squared off at centre ice, some 2 1/2 weeks after Gudas ended Leafs captain Auston Matthews’ season with a knee-on-knee hit.

Domi got the better of Gudas in the scrap, landing several rights before the players fell to the ice. Both players were assessed fighting majors.

The Leafs, playing with passion all night, also got revenge on the scoreboard, beating the Ducks 5-4 in overtime.

Never mind that the victory came hours after the Leafs fired general manager Brad Treliving.

John Tavares scored with five seconds left in the extra period when he redirected a Morgan Rielly shot past goalie Ville Husso.

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Down 3-1 in the third, the Leafs tied the game on goals by Matthew Knies and William Nylander before Rielly put Toronto up 4-3 with three minutes remaining. At 18:21, Leo Carlsson scored his second of the game to send it to overtime.

Nylander also had three assists for his second four-point game of the season.

What probably mattered most in the Leafs dressing room was the response to Gudas.

If Gudas thought his answering was done with Domi, he was wrong.

Going after Gudas

The night of redemption didn’t end with Domi, though neither Michael Pezzetta nor Jake McCabe got what they were looking for when they later went after Gudas.

Early in the second period, Pezzetta tried to fight Gudas, but wound up with a roughing minor, a 10-minute misconduct and a game misconduct after getting a little too physical with linesman Ryan Gibbons. Gudas was not penalized.

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Midway through the second, McCabe pulled Gudas out of a scrum though a fight did not result. Both players got double minors for roughing, while McCabe also earned a 10-minute misconduct.

Gudas, the Ducks captain, didn’t have another shift in the game but remained on the bench. He played through a lower-body injury suffered in a game last week against Calgary.

All told, the Leafs did what they had to do, but let’s be honest.

The Domi fight probably wouldn’t have been necessary had the Leafs responded when Gudas hit Matthews during a game at Scotiabank Arena on March 12. When none of the players on the ice did anything, a group that included Rielly, Brandon Carlo, Nylander and Easton Cowan, criticism of the Leafs was quick and sharp.

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Naturally, it had been a topic since.

Domi mentioned after the Leafs played in Buffalo two nights later that he was “pretty angry” with the news that Matthews was done for the season. And, Domi said, “we play them in a couple of weeks” referring to the Leafs’ visit to Anaheim at the end of the month. Getting a piece of Gudas clearly was on Domi’s mind. Domi fought Pavel Mintyukov in the second period and was tossed for being the aggressor.

Matthews surgery

Gudas’ hit on Matthews resulted in a torn medial collateral ligament in the centre’s left knee. Matthews had surgery in New York on March 19 with an expected recovery time of 12 weeks.

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Gudas was given a five-game suspension by the National Hockey League and when it ended last week, he told media upon his return to the lineup that he felt “terrible” for the hit.

NHL Department of Player Safety head George Parros was in attendance on Monday night. Nothing in the fight between Domi and Gudas suggested further discipline.

After Carlsson and Cutter Gauthier scored to put Anaheim up 2-0, John Tavares scored at 14:18 of the first period on a power play.

John Carlson scored shorthanded for Anaheim in the second period.

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @koshtorontosun

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