How I caught the Toronto Maple Leafs in the act of ‘salute-gate’

Toronto Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews will play in his 100th career game tonight against his hometown team in the Arizona Coyotes.

Happy days are certainly here again for long-suffering Toronto Maple Leafs fans as the team is currently riding both a six-game winning streak and their third-longest shutout streak in the last 30 years. They’re also coming off a 6–0 drubbing administered in the best of all circumstances: against the Montreal Canadiens… in Montreal… on Hockey Night in Canada.

They’re also marking an anniversary.

In order to make progress and remedy a situation, the common refrain goes, one has to hit rock bottom. The current edition of the Maple Leafs did just that on Nov. 20, 2014, and I had a front-row view (granted from a little higher up in the broadcast location at Air Canada Centre).

The high of the Leafs’ seven-game playoff series against the Boston Bruins in 2013 left fans believing that they would more be on an upward climb like the one the Leafs are now during that fall of the 2013–14 season. They had traded for their No. 1 goaltender of the future in Jonathan Bernier and landed their biggest free-agency catch in many years with the signing of David Clarkson (seven years at $5.25 million per). They’d also signed extensions with Phil Kessel (eight years at $8 million per) and Dion Phaneuf (seven years at $7 million per).

[relatedlinks]

All that optimism and positive synergy would, once again, go south shortly after Tyler Bozak scored in a shootout to usher in 2014 with an exciting win in an Outdoor Classic in the Big House in Michigan. The Leafs limped to the regular-season finish line and finished well out of the playoffs. Though Brian Burke was no longer with the Leafs, his expression of a few years earlier that “the 18 wheeler went off the highway” would ring true yet again.

Shortly after the season ended and over the summer months, things got kind of confusing off the ice. Brendan Shanahan was brought in in April to oversee the Leafs hockey operations, a position he still holds over three years later, but by training camp there was little coaching and front-office clarity beyond that.

Tim Leiweke, the head of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and the man who brought Shanahan to Toronto, had become a lame duck as it was well known that he would be leaving the organization. He went from a high-profile public figure to a no-profile public figure. Both GM Dave Nonis and head coach Randy Carlyle were retained by Shanahan, but in both cases their assistants were dismissed.

The big-name signing would be a young assistant GM named Kyle Dubas. One of the new assistant coaches, Steve Spott, garnered media attention earlier then he would have liked when he shared with minor hockey coaches, at a coaching clinic, how he had approached Kessel with some power-play ideas and Kessel had basically dismissed all his thoughts. Spott was intending to give the coaches a look into the mindset of NHL players, but it played out poorly for him and didn’t look good on Kessel.

 
Despite success, Maple Leafs are still figuring their way
November 20 2017

Gone was the optimism of the beginning of the previous season. As 2014–15 dawned, Leafs fans now realized that Bernier was not the No. 1 goaltender of the future as they had hoped, that Clarkson would never be a front-line Leaf mainly due to injuries, and that the Kessel and Phaneuf contracts weren’t ideal for a team that seemed to be spinning its wheels rather than making progress.

The season also started with a weird and different vibe in the Leafs dressing room. There seemed to be a great deal of resentment towards the media and in some cases the fans. Some focused on the fact that a jersey had been thrown on the ice by a disgruntled Leafs fan — an event that became emblematic of the abuse players felt they were taking — rather than looking at the 18,000 other fans who were too often subjected to a below-average product.

Despite all, the Leafs started the season 9-6-2 in their first 17 games. But after a 6–2 loss to Buffalo on Nov. 15, much was made in the media about words exchanged between Kessel and a member of the media. I can’t even remember what it was about, but it seemed to spotlight the grudges by some members on both sides.

The next game on Nov. 18 was a 9–2 loss to Nashville at Air Canada Centre. It was just one of those horrible, dreadful games. And the only thing worse than losing in that manner is losing like that on home ice. By the end of the game the predictable booing cascaded from the few fans who were left. Something that I have always seen and would expect to some degree from any game in which the home team loses 9–2.

[snippet id=3638225]

Two days later, on Nov. 20, the Leafs righted the ship on the ice with a big 5–2 win over the tough Tampa Bay Lightning. The Leafs now had a decent 10-8-2 record in their first 20 games. I got set to host my Leafs Nation Post-Game show from the broadcast position at the ACC. My co-host, Mark Osborne, stood with me as we waited for the play-by-play crew of Joe Bowen and Jim Ralph to sign off.

As I stood there looking down on the ice and talking to Osborne, one of those “Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” moments unfolded before me. It was a little hard to figure out, but I sensed I had absorbed the gist of it.

For a number of years now, all NHL teams have celebrated home wins by skating to centre ice and raising their sticks to salute their fans. I can’t remember exactly how and when it started, but I have to say I have always gotten a bit of a kick out of it and enjoyed watching it while I would get set for a post-game show. It also made for a better post-game show for me (and the radio audience) when the Leafs had won.

I noticed that there seemed to be a degree of confusion on the ice. While one player had already skated to centre ice to give the salute and one was almost there to join him (Leo Komorov and Cody Franson), the majority were strangely milling about wondering what to do. Suddenly, Kessel bolted towards Phaneuf and said something to him, and then they both gestured to the players to follow them off the ice.

It was like a slow-moving-accident scene as I tried to figure out what I had seen. Suddenly I said to Osborne, “I can’t believe it — these guys are pissed at the fans and they are sticking it to them by not giving them the salute.”

 
Jeff Blair: The Leafs have gotten rid of that Brian Burke-Dave Nonis taste
November 20 2017

As Osborne and I took our positions for the post-game show I was still stunned at what I had seen. When our post-game show began, I started by describing to our audience what had just transpired. I really don’t think a lot of people at the game fully comprehended what had happened — I know the television broadcast signed off without any mention.

So the strangest post-game show I ever hosted got underway. I was dealing with the story within the story. Our gold-standard regular guest, Chris Johnston, joined us shortly after talking with the players and catching Carlyle’s post-game press conference. But he hadn’t seen what happened — nobody had. The media (including Johnston) had hustled down the media elevator at the game-ending buzzer and hadn’t seen the players’ semi-organized protest. Carlyle had no idea as well.

All of a sudden the media had a second story, and a second wave of interviews began with Carlyle and the players. Carlyle said little, but clearly wasn’t thrilled. The players acknowledged they had organized a different kind of post-game response to the fans but really couldn’t get their stories straight either that night or the next morning. Team leaders tried to say that they were going to do something “different” post-game to celebrate wins now. Their responses made what became known as “salute-gate” more of an enduring and sad story.

[snippet ID=3322139]

While I was doing the post-game show I was getting texts from many of my friends wondering what exactly had gone on and who exactly were the ringleaders and any further information I knew. It was so completely shocking and unthinkable to the average sports fan. I really couldn’t add much more then and I wasn’t prepared to “out” certain players by what I had seen. They would “out” themselves with their comments afterwards.

When I got home I watched the media coverage with interest and curiosity. It was three hours after the final buzzer, but the Leafs’ win over Tampa Bay was now dwarfed by salute-gate. The television network that had signed off on the Leafs game without noticing the snub to the fans now was breaking down the video of salute-gate like crime footage.

So the “vibe” I had previously noticed from the dressing room was obviously a toxic one when it came to the disdain that some players had for the media and the fans. My suspicions were more than confirmed.

What is forgotten about that inglorious period is that it actually was the start of a brief “glorious” period. Beginning with that Tampa Bay win, the Leafs would lose only one of their next 12 games (10-1-1). So the perception that salute-gate began an immediate downward spiral on the ice is actually inaccurate.

But the downward spiral wasn’t avoided. Beginning with a 4–1 loss to Carolina on Dec. 18, the Leafs went 2-7-0 in their next nine games. They were actually still in a playoff position when that dreadful run resulted in Randy Carlyle being fired in early January. Assistant coach Peter Horacek, one of Shanahan’s off-season hires, was named the Leafs’ new head coach. But the downward spiral just continued as he would win just eight of his 38 games in the role (8-25-5).

In life, when you do hit rock bottom, the important thing is what actions you take to get yourself back on track. It is here where (to me) the first key building blocks were laid in the foundation of what has become a very solid Leafs team and a strong organization.

Shanahan, to his credit, remedied the embarrassment and slight to Leafs fans in the short term. He showed that he was capably in charge over those few days. In the big picture, he recognized the serious surgery that needed to be done to the team and the organization. Key additional building blocks were the hiring of Mike Babcock as head coach and, a few months later, Lou Lamoriello as GM.

It is obvious to everyone that the Leafs have made significantly more positive moves than negative ones over the past three years and that is why they appear to be a team truly going in the right direction. Ironically, that path all started three years ago with an event that was “rock bottom.”

Three years on, Salute-gate is now a distant memory rather then a recent blight. In hindsight, it really is a happy anniversary. All Leafs can salute the actions taken since then.

When submitting content, please abide by our submission guidelines, and avoid posting profanity, personal attacks or harassment. Should you violate our submissions guidelines, we reserve the right to remove your comments and block your account. Sportsnet reserves the right to close a story’s comment section at any time.