Toronto Maple Leafs forward Ryan Reaves broke his silence on the five-game suspension he got for hitting Edmonton Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse in the head.

The reason why Reaves was suspended for five games was due to him delivering a crushing blow to Nurse’s head during their matchup on November 16th. Nurse was down on the ice for several minutes, before being assisted off the ice, while Reaves was assessed a match penalty for the hit.

Having completed his serving on the five-game suspension, Reaves spoke with reporters for the first time about the hit and his interpretation of the events.

“Just took a couple inch too bad of an angle and caught him,” he said via TSN’s Mark Masters. “Just an unfortunate incident that if I’m a second later I catch body. Obviously, something you don’t want to see, but just a split-second too early.”

In the ruling for the suspension by the Department of Player Safety, they deemed that it was a clear hit to the head and that the hit was avoidable because of the bad angle of approach that he took. While Reaves claims to have mistimed his hit when he intended to go for the body the video shows evidence to the contrary.

This could be why he said he wouldn’t comment on whether or not the length of the suspension was fair or too harsh.

“I don’t want to get into that,” he said. “I already told the kids that Christmas is cancelled and I don’t want to get fined again. It’s over and we’re just going leave it at that.”

Reports emerged after the game that Reaves went over to the Oilers locker room during the third period of that fateful game to give a ‘face-to-face’ apology to Nurse. While Nurse acknowledged that this occurred, he was understandably not too pleased with the hit that injured in and felt that it was ‘pretty obvious’ that Reaves intended to inflict pain with the hit. He wasn’t the only one who did not take too kindly to the collision as the Oilers also voiced their displeasure after the game.

Reaves was asked about Nurse’s comments and while he didn’t argue against the that he wants to inflict pain, he always intends to do so within the confines of the rules.

“The only truth that he spoke was I go out there to inflict pain,” he said. “That’s a fact and that’s not going to stop, but I’m going to continue to do it legally.

“Yeah, I’m going to keep playing hard if not harder now, and I’m going to keep burying guys. When you get caught by somebody I think you’re entitled to your opinion and that’s fine. But I think my 900 games and however many thousands of hits I have speaks for itself. I play physical every game and I’ve been doing it for 15 years and I’ve only had a couple suspensions.”

Now that both sides have spoken their mind on the infraction, the Leafs and Oilers can shift their focus back to their respective seasons for the time being. But make no mistake: the rematch on February 1st is going to have plenty of fireworks regardless of whether or not Reaves is in the lineup.

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