How Gavin McKenna and Jim Hiller hope to put Bench-gate behind them

The kid from Whitehorse got back on his horse Saturday, while Jim Hiller tried to calm the corral of his coaching critics.

Gavin McKenna’s benching for half of Thursday’s 5-4 overtime loss to Buffalo needed to be explained to both the rookie winger by Hiller and to Hiller for the masses. A win against the New York Islanders with McKenna now in an elevated role would be a welcome change of topic.

After the Leafs kept McKenna away from cameras and microphones post-game and with Friday’s day off, he and Hiller confirmed they’d conferred.

Hiller had not really provided good reason why he’d keep fresh young legs on the bench when his travel weary team went into a defensive shell up 4-2.

What did McKenna and Hiller discuss?

“We had a good talk, we have a good relationship,” McKenna maintained after the morning skate. “He said it had nothing to do with my play, which doesn’t take away from your confidence, and I appreciate him reaching out. I trust him, the team and what they want to do. I’m willing to play any role they want.”

Bench warmer was not in the cards, however, even with Hiller’s reasoning that a couple of Toronto penalties, sitting the second intermission and the nature of the game all factored into keeping McKenna to the hitching post.

“I’m obviously not going to kill penalties and yeah at the end of the second period, you’d think you’ll get a shift,” McKenna said. “But it didn’t come, you sit for awhile and get a bit cold. You start to realize you’ll be watching a little. But honestly, you have a team like this with players like this, all those vets, you can learn a lot by watching.”

Many of those longtime NHLers went to McKenna afterwards with words of encouragement. He played less than half of his season high 17:08 from the game before in Utah.

“Quite a few came up, they’re all behind me, they told me to stay confident (saying), ‘You’ve got 84 games in a season, an off-game doesn’t mean the end of the world.’”

What’s Hiller’s plan for McKenna and Leafs minus John Tavares?

Had the Leafs played with a modicum of proper team defence, McKenna’s absence from the game and from interviews wouldn’t have been a front-burner story. Hiller had to answer for both issues again Saturday morning.

“It was a good conversation, like Gavin and I have had since I met him. He’s a real interesting guy, I love his personality, he has great confidence. He knows how good he is and how great he’s going to be.

“I’ve thought about (the benching) for sure. I had a couple of opportunities and in that moment decided not to (play him), to go in different directions for different reasons. I didn’t want to put him in a bad spot after that.”

Unforeseen circumstances did place McKenna back in a key role with Saturday’s news that centre John Tavares is week-to-week with a lower body injury, anywhere from one to six out of action. McKenna will be moved up to Tavares’s spot on the first power play at the skate when not playing left wing 5-on-5 with Colton Sissons at centre and Benoit Groulx on the right.

Hiller insisted he wasn’t concerned specifically about McKenna’s defensive acumen and rightfully pointed out the rest of the team bore responsibility to better contain the Sabres.

“Every player has got to be a little better without the puck, because we’re pretty good with it,” he said.

Hiller saluted sophomore Easton Cowan for not dropping off on Thursday as he takes the left side on the second line with Nick Paul and Kirill Marchenko.

McKenna used to go-to guy role

McKenna admitted that being so used to his go-to guy role at every level since Team Yukon at the Canada Games, through junior and last year in college, it was disorienting to shift up and down the pines and not play.

“I can’t say that’s ever happened,” he laughed. “That was a first.”

He and Hiller certainly want to avoid a repeat.

The last time Toronto faced the Islanders was its first win, 2-1, and best defensive game, a 26-save effort from Anthony Stolarz. They kept dangerous New York defenceman Matthew Schaefer off the board, something unlikely to happen twice in the latter’s hometown.

As winger William Nylander pointed out, that was the Isles’ first game of the year and they’ve since worked their kinks out.

“We tracked pretty well in that game, but I thought we did against Buffalo as well,” Hiller cautioned. “We got away from that (on the three-game road trip) with rush chances and we want to get back to that, helping our defence with our forwards. That’s important no matter who we are playing.”

Lhornby@postmedia.com 

X: @sunhornby   

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