The Toronto Maple Leafs signed Ryan Reaves, one of the NHL’s premier enforcers, to a four-year, $4.05 million contract just over a year ago. Reaves’s first year in the Canadian hockey hotbed was eventful, and often not for the right reasons.
The brash and controversial forward recently spoke about his tumultuous 2023-24 campaign in a guest appearance on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast. To describe his first season with the club, he dropped a line that would make Alan May proud.
“It was hard for me at the beginning of the year because I was playing like s***,” Reaves said. “When you’re not performing here, the media jumps on you. The fans that are sitting in their parents’ basement, they jump on you.”
Reaves started the 2023-24 season in the team’s starting lineup before a 0-goal, 0-assist run in the first 14 games led to him being healthy scratched. After returning to the lineup, the 37-year-old forward suffered a lower-body injury in December that kept him out of action for a month.
However, Reaves claimed he was healthy for most of that month, and despite that, Toronto kept him on injured reserve. Those weeks spent on the shelf without an update from the team led to some self-doubt and concern he was already being shepherded away from the team.
“I went through a little bit of a tough stretch there where I couldn’t get anything going on the ice,” Reaves said. “I was getting scratched and thinking, ‘Everybody wants me out of here.’ It was the first time I really experienced low confidence for a couple of months there.”
Reaves eventually became a regular in the lineup again once the calendar flipped into February, and it didn’t take long for him to make more headlines. In a February 10 game between the Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators, Ridly Greig, a rookie forward for Ottawa, violated hockey code by taking a slap shot into Toronto’s empty net. Morgan Rielly, the Maple Leafs’s top defenseman, responded by violently cross-checking Greig in the face.
The action led to a five-game suspension for Rielly doled out by the NHL’s Department of Player Safety. Reaves, of course, gave his two cents about the play and fully approved of what Rielly did.
“There’s gotta be a message sent,” Reaves said. “Guy takes a clapper into our net, you want to go play patty cake with him? I don’t think a push is a message. I thought it was appropriate. These young kids these days are playing a different brand of hockey than I’m used to. It’s unfortunate that a young kid can get away with something like that, and one of our best players is going to get suspended for it.”
He added, “Make hockey violent again, a tattoo I should get.”
Reaves ended the season with six points (4g, 2a) in 49 games. Toronto made the playoffs as the third seed in the Atlantic Division, looking to build on their first-round victory from the previous season. Unfortunately, they and Reaves ran into their bitter rivals, the Boston Bruins.
After going down 3-1 in the series, Toronto fought back to force a Game 7, which Reaves sat out of as a healthy scratch. Boston won the series finale 2-1 in overtime and sent the Maple Leafs packing for another early summer. Reaves tallied an assist in the five games he played.
After the defeat, Toronto fired head coach Sheldon Keefe and brought in Craig Berube to replace him. Berube was a tough customer in his playing days, primarily for the Philadelphia Flyers and Washington Capitals. The goal of the hire was to instill some of the grit and grind that Berube showcased on the way to amassing the seventh-most penalty minutes (3,149) in NHL history.
Reaves needs no invitation or prodding to play that sort of game. And it appears the rest of his teammates are turning to him so they can add some of what Berube probably wants to see to their game. At a recent Maple Leafs practice, Reaves gave fighting tips to defenseman Philippe Myers.
Philippe Myers asked Ryan Reaves for fighting tips at practice. “He hasn’t been in many fights. I think that’s the first time he squared up,” Reaves says. pic.twitter.com/1qU9LxMKsp
— luke fox (@lukefoxjukebox) October 7, 2024
Toronto is set to get their 2024-25 season underway with a rivalry matchup against the Montreal Canadiens on Wednesday night. Reaves has been skating on the team’s fourth line and appears slated to dress for Opening Night at the Bell Centre.
The Canadiens will have their own enforcer on the ice in the form of defenseman Arber Xhekaj. Xhekaj and Reaves fought in their first-ever meeting last season after Reaves hit Montreal’s Kaiden Guhle.
