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John Tavares feels good.
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Other than a bit of soreness in his jaw and cheek, the Maple Leafs veteran reported nothing serious in the past few days after he was rocked on a hit thrown by Ottawa Senators defenceman Artem Zub in overtime of Game 4 on Saturday night.
Tavares wasn’t thrilled that no penalty was called on the play, but he wasn’t dwelling on it too much either.
There would have been no protest from the Leafs had referees Jean Hebert or Peter MacDougall called Zub for interference.
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“I don’t think I really need to explain it,” Tavares said of his perspective of the hit. “I think it was pretty obvious what happened on the play. Puck is nowhere near me.
“You just move on from it, go out there and keep competing and trust that the refs are going to make the right calls.”
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As Tavares was going through concussion protocol after being pulled from the game by the spotter, the Leafs failed to score on a four-minute power play after Ottawa’s Drake Batherson combed the face of defenceman Chris Tanev with his stick.
Had Tavares, who said he was not aware Toronto was on the power play, been available, they might have scored. Instead, five shots on goal didn’t land and captain Auston Matthews hit the post. Jake Sanderson later scored the winner to keep Ottawa alive in the series.
Leafs coach Craig Berube got to the point on Monday when he was asked about the hit.
“I don’t like the hit,” Berube said. “Puck is nowhere near him. Looked like a headshot to me.”
Berube wasn’t upset that Tavares was called into protocol and tested before he was cleared to return.
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“You have to make sure guys are OK,” Berube said. “It’s important to do that. Nothing you can do about it. It’s tough, I agree. But those are the rules.”
Speaking of penalties, Max Domi owned up to the undisciplined minor he took in the first period of Game 4, when he got his stick and glove up on Shane Pinto at the faceoff circle. Ottawa took a 1-0 lead with Domi serving a roughing minor.
“You don’t want to butt-end the guy in the face,” Domi said. “I certainly didn’t mean to do that.
“It’s one of those things where you have to be aware of your stick. It doesn’t matter if it’s a situation like that, or a trip or on the forecheck, wherever it might be. Refs have to do their job. They have to call that. You have to respect that. So it’s on us to be better and certainly myself included, and we’ll be better.”
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Said Berube: “It’s not a good penalty. We know that. Emotions get involved in the game and that’s where you have to control your emotions.”
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Berube, as we have come to know, has a way of taking a step back and defusing. We’ll give him the last word about lingering on bad or missed calls.
“You can’t change what referees call or miss,” Berube said. “That’s all part of the game and you have to move on from it and you have to focus on your next shift.
“Mistakes happen with players, mistakes happen with coaches, mistakes happen with referees. There is nothing you can do about it. We have to focus on what we need to do and that’s important.”
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