Report: Bruins complain to the league about Leafs’ tactics ahead of Game 7

Earlier in the wildly entertaining series between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins, legendary CBC announcer Don Cherry called out his hometown Leafs for what he considered some dirty tactics. Specifically, Cherry took exception with the Leafs’ use of “slew-footing”. If you’re not familiar with exactly what a “slew foot” is, it’s one of the dirtiest plays in hockey. When you approach an unsuspecting player from behind and push the back of their skate forward either with your stick or with your own foot/leg, that’s a slew foot. Because ice is… well slippery, there’s no defence to the slew foot and it usually ends up with the recipient crashing backward to the ice. Again, it’s an ugly play and Grapes has seen enough of it out of the Leafs.

Check it out:

Those are some dirty, dirty plays. Good on Grapes for catching this garbage and for calling people out on it. With all the talk about injuries and concussions and with people wailing and moaning for fighting to be taken out of the game, why is no one looking closer at these type of plays? 

Well, it turns out someone is and it just happens to be Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy. According to a report by Matt Porter of the Boston Globe, Cassidy and the Bruins have formally brought the matter to the league’s attention. According to Porter, Cassidy has alerted the officiating supervisors about the Maple Leafs’ tactics as the teams prepare for Game 7 Tuesday night at TD Garden.

“I just find their skates bump the back of ours a lot, whether that’s just dumb luck or how they battle for pucks,” Cassidy said after practice earlier today Monday. “We’ve brought it up with the supervisor, if you see a few of them. There’s a couple things we find Toronto does that we’ve brought up, that’s why they’re [the supervisors] here, that’s what they ask for — anything you see.”

“I’m sure Toronto brings things up with us. We’ll see where it goes. I noticed there was one on the faceoff, [Sean] Kuraly went down from behind. There’s been a few of them every game. It started with the [Jake] DeBrusk battle [in Game 2] but I don’t know if I’d call it a slew-foot.”

“I’d just call it feet contacting feet, whether it’s by accident or by design I don’t know. I don’t want to speculate.”

No word yet on whether the league has formally replied or addressed the issue, but as with all things when it comes to the league’s head office… we’re not holding our breath on an explanation. 

Good ice, bad ice, one thing’s for sure: it’s going to be an epic finale to an epic first round series.