Darren Raddysh’s Maple Leafs debut could not have gone much worse

Auston Matthews had a terrific debut for the Toronto Maple Leafs that made us all think that he could be one of the best ever players in franchise history. Darren Raddysh had whatever the opposite of that is on Tuesday night.

As the Maple Leafs opened their season against the Montreal Canadiens in front of Leafs Nation at Scotiabank Arena, they were icing basically an entirely new roster aside from the stars at the very top of their lineup. The offseason full of turnover meant that this first game of the season against their archrivals would serve as the very first point of judgement for some of these moves. Unfortunately, one is not looking so good.

Darren Raddysh had a terrible Maple Leafs debut

In what ended up being a 3-2 regulation loss to Montreal, Raddysh was directly involved in the very first two goals scored by the Canadiens. Typically, we don't want to immediately pounce on a debuting player but these were especially egregious errors that are now all that we have seen from Raddysh as a Leaf.

On the Canadiens' first goal in the middle of the first period to negate William Nylander's season-opening goal, Raddysh was caught trying to clear the zone, had his attempted breakout pass immediately intercepted and sent behind him deeper in his own end, and while under the slightest of pressure from Kirby Dach, he coughed it up and after a couple seconds of Montreal setting upn their play, Josh Anderson tied the game.

It was straight up terrible. With the immensely bright spotlight on you during your debut for your hometown team that signed you to a massive eight-year contract this past summer, to mess up a few times and have that directly lead to a goal must feel pretty bad.

So, why not do it again?

On the Canadiens' second goal of the game scored by Zack Bolduc, Raddysh was caught puckwatching a little bit in his own zone and for some reason, as Mike Matheson was crashing through the crease and setting up Bolduc with the perfect scoring opportunity, Raddysh decided to take Matheson's body instead of paying attention to who is about to score the puck. And him going for the hit instead of the goalscorer basically caused Matheson to move him out of the way for the goal to go on.

A whole lot of nasty work. And, Raddysh was also on the ice for the Canadiens' third goal of the game.

The 30-year-old defenseman didn't have as direct an effect on the goal against, but he was still involved in the play and could have made better choices if given a second chance.

Does this change anything for Darren Raddysh?

If we wanted to remain optimistic -- since, you know, Raddysh is signed for the next eight years at an $8.5-million AAV -- we can chalk up this performance to the entire team needing to further familiarize themselves with head coach Jim Hiller's system, since it is a new coach for this team and basically an entirely new roster.

Also, it could just be that Morgan Rielly is not the right defensive partner for Raddysh. Maybe he tried to do too much and maybe two offensively gifted but slow blueliners are not right for one another.

Thankfully, the Leafs play less than 24 hours from now as they host the New York Islanders for the second half of a season-opening back-to-back. If he puts in a good performance, we're willing to forgive him.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow