Commenting for the first time since his five-game suspension, Ryan Reaves spoke with regret about the result of his hit on Darnell Nurse. He also defended his record over his 15-season NHL career.
“I play the way I play, and I think the reason I’ve stuck around so long is I don’t take suspensions and I’m not in the box a lot,” Reaves said ahead of his return to the Maple Leafs lineup on Wednesday night. “I try and play within the rules of the game. So when something like that happens and a hit gets away from me — I don’t want to see anybody laying on the ice with a head injury obviously.”
Reaves received a match penalty for his illegal hit to the head of Nurse in the second period of a game between the Leafs and Oilers on Nov. 16. Nurse called it a “dangerous hit” in the aftermath and noted that “there are certain guys in the league that every shift, they go out there and they go out and try to inflict pain. I think it’s pretty obvious what’s going on there.”
Reaves said Nurse was entitled to his opinion.
“But I think my 900 games, and however many thousands of hits I have, speaks for itself,” he said. “I play physical every game, I’ve been doing it for 15 years, and I’ve only had a couple suspensions. The only truth that he spoke was I go out there to inflict pain. That’s a fact and that’s not gonna stop. But I’m gonna continue to do it legally. I’m gonna keep playing hard, if not harder now, and keep burying guys.”
Reaves, who has played 893 regular season games and added 113 more in the playoffs, said he took the wrong angle with his hit on Nurse.
“It’s an unfortunate incident that if I’m a second later, I catch body,” he said. “But obviously it’s something you don’t want to see. I was just a split-second too early.”
Asked about the severity of the suspension, which came with a fine of $35,156.25, Reaves said: “I don’t want to get into that. I already told the kids that Christmas is cancelled. I don’t want to get fined again. It’s over. We’re just gonna leave it at that.”
(Photo: Claus Andersen / Getty Images)
