Sabres @ Leafs - Oct. 15th, 7:00pm - TSN4

[cw]

To put it mildly, that is not very good on the coach's part.
Tavares was out. His stars were obviously gassed.
The kid had not done anything major wrong.
He's so smooth and fast, he'd be great at 3 on 3 offensively.

 

[herman]

This accidental benching happens most often to zippy wingers who are offense-oriented but not elite level, and considered defensive liabilities during a lead. I don’t get losing him in the second period and not getting him ramped back up in the third. Of course they have this plan for lead protection deployment, which they need to rethink posthaste. He definitely should’ve been rotated in after Tavares’ injury/exit.

After that midway point of the third, I understand not exposing McKenna out there for OT while he’s been cold for so long.

 

[Bill_Berg]

It was dumb. At some point he was too cold to get on the ice sure, but the whole thing is just dumb. Now it's a crappy talking point, might have cost the team a point, and everyone looks dumb.

 

[Zee]

I went to bed with a 4-2 lead, wake up to find out not only did they blow it, but McKenna benched and played under 7 minutes the entire game.

Who the hell benches the #1 overall pick 7 games into a season? Very Babcockian thing to do.

 

[YYZ]

This accidental benching happens most often to zippy wingers who are offense-oriented but not elite level, and considered defensive liabilities during a lead. I don’t get losing him in the second period and not getting him ramped back up in the third. Of course they have this plan for lead protection deployment, which they need to rethink posthaste. He definitely should’ve been rotated in after Tavares’ injury/exit.

After that midway point of the third, I understand not exposing McKenna out there for OT while he’s been cold for so long.

Get him to do some jumping jacks in the tunnel. A few deep knee bends. Holy fawk.

It's infuriating. On one side, I get what Hiller is trying to do. If Hiller puts 92 on the ice in OT and they get scored on, the knives will come out. I get he's trying to protect him.

The kid is ELITE in skating, stick handling and he has shown he has a wicked shot. He can even back check. Hiller needs to start trusting McKenna more. I haven't seen anything out of 92 that says he can't be trusted.

To go up 4-2 and all of the sudden you try to become the 1995 New Jersey Devils is beyond idiotic on Hiller's part.

That fourth line was playing awesome last night. The EXACT type of fourth line shifts you want. Hammering the opposing D, keeping possession and cycling it around the offensive zone. Then Hiller decides to bench MacEwen? What an idiot.

 

[cw]

So he's cold on the bench. Send him back to the locker room to stretch, hop on the bike, take a few shots and warm up. Have him go for a skate during the tv breaks (there were five them them after his last shift). There is little to risk doing that. Guy is just sitting there doing nothing anyway.

Even if he was being disciplined, and there is no sign from his play or his coach that he was, the needs of his team have to come first. His team was visibly gassed. I'm struggling to think of a worse Leafs coaching decision on the bench in the last couple of decades. I'm sure someone can think of something but this has to be up near the top of the list.

As I'm typing this, I wonder "when did he call a timeout for his gassed team?"
I can't find one in the play by play. This was a problem with him in LA - he forgets to use his timeouts. Did the NHL stats folks mess up? I do not recall him taking a timeout .... I'm dumbfounded why he wouldn't: they were gassed and gave up 2 goals ...