MAPLE LEAFS NOTES: Coach Keefe takes drastic step of scratching Brodie | Maqvi News

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Defenceman TJ Brodie’s struggles have led him to the press box for Wednesday’s game.

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Maple Leaf head coach Sheldon Keefe told reporters in Washington, before the second of consecutive contests, that Brodie was sitting. The 33-year-old had not been a healthy scratch this season or any other in Toronto, missing just one other game this year, with an illness that took him out of the Dec. 16 match against Pittsburgh.

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“I just think it’s an opportunity for us to give him a little bit of time off, lighten the workload a bit here,” Keefe said. “He hasn’t been at his best for most of the season.”

Brodie had no goals and 18 assists in 66 games, and though currently a plus-14, he was coming off back-to-back games of minus-two, was culpable on other opposition opportunities and hasn’t been as active in the rush. His regular pairing with Morgan Rielly has not been effective and while Rielly had had some success elsewhere in the lineup, efforts to find the left-shooting Brodie the right mix on either side in multiple tandems, including new defencemen, have not been successful.

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Defenceman Conor Timmins was activated for Wednesday after going down with mononucleosis a few weeks ago as Ilya Lyubushkin remains unable to play with a suspected flu bug.

The other lineup change Wednesday saw winger Noah Gregor come in for Ryan Reaves. After an unprovoked fight with Nicolas Deslauriers during the 4-3 loss in Philadelphia Tuesday, Reaves left the box with swelling around his right eye.

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ROY HAD ENOUGH ROUGH STUFF

Hard not to revive the connection this week between the passing of Roy McMurtry at age 91 and Tuesday’s Toronto-Philadelphia game with the Reaves’ injury.

In the mid-1970s, Ontario Attorney General McMurtry put hockey leagues on notice after embracing brother Bill’s report for the province that claimed violence in the NHL and the World Hockey Association was adversely influencing lower rungs of the sport.

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Within a few months of Roy taking office, charges were laid against Detroit’s Dan Maloney for rag-dolling Leaf defenceman Brian Glennie to the ice and four members of the Philadelphia Flyers on assault-related allegations in a 1976 playoff game at the Gardens. Maloney was acquitted, the four Flyers of Broad Street Bully vintage pleaded guilty with light punishment.

Both McMurtrys were hockey players as kids and Roy was a college footballer, but the latter had no time for “inappropriate violence.” Out of politics years later, Roy was vocal about banning head shots when a link to concussions was first publicized in the 2010s.

“If the NHL played on some other planet, I wouldn’t care less what they do to each other,” McMurtry told the Globe and Mail in 2012. “But they don’t and everything they do has an influence on every youngster who plays the game.”

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OVIE IN AUSTON’S CORNER

While Auston Matthews has yet to complete the Stanley Cup challenge that Alex Ovechkin laid down five years ago, the Great Eight is pulling for him to reach 70 goals this season.

“I’m happy for him, hope he gets it,” Ovechkin told media in Washington on Wednesday morning. “Maybe 70, you never know. Of course (I root for him). First of all, fans gonna love it. He’s a special player, it’s fun to watch.”

Matthews’ goal total was at 55 before the game. The 38-year-old Ovechkin’s season-best was potting 65 in 2007-08, but he went on to win a Cup 10 years later with the Caps after many setbacks and at age 38 is 51 goals shy of catching Wayne Gretzky for the NHL career crown.

Ovechkin certainly got the attention of the young Leafs in 2019 when he advised Matthews and fellow stars Mitch Marner and William Nylander that his takeaway from finally winning a title meant playing more as a team. Whatever the Leafs think of their current chemistry, closing in on an eighth straight post-season appearance while the Caps might miss the dance again, they’ve won just one series since Ovie made his comment.

lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby

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