The Leafs sent Oilers a message in a (Canadian) hockey match that nearly mattered

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The only thing more foolish than wishing for a result is doing the same for a match-up. The latter is always harder to come by than the former.

But after watching Saturday’s big event in Toronto – the other one – one cannot help but dream a little dream. That some day soon, somehow, the Edmonton Oilers and Toronto Maple Leafs meet in the playoffs.

Saturday’s game wasn’t the best played by either team this season, but it may have been the most urgent. It certainly became so after Toronto’s Ryan Reaves tried to shear Darnell Nurse’s head from his shoulders in the second period.

The gruesome hit – on Sunday, the NHL suspended Reaves five games for the hit – left Nurse in a shambles. Reaves made sure the insult would remain after the injury had healed. The whole time officials were trying to get him off the ice, he did not stop chirping. Nurse didn’t have anything to say as he was half-carried backstage.

Arena staff didn’t bother scraping Nurse’s blood off the sheet for a couple of shifts. Maybe they wanted to make sure everyone saw it.

Reaves was tossed from the game, but he didn’t make himself scarce. As the Leafs left their dressing room for the third period, Reaves – wearing long johns and an undershirt – assumed his usual place in the high-five line. The crowd roared in approval when they saw him on the scoreboard. That is some cheek, from the player and from his audience.

After the Leafs had come back, and then Edmonton had come back on them, and then the Leafs had come back again to win 4-3 in overtime, everyone was at pains not to make this A Thing.

Asked if he’d seen the hit, Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said, “Yeah, I did. Contact to the head. I did see it, and that’s all.”

Over on the other side, Leafs coach Craig Berube said, “I didn’t look at it.”

Because there are monitors built into the floor behind each bench, if Berube didn’t see it, that’s because he didn’t want to.

It took until the end of his remarks to get something that sounded closer to reality.

“I thought [the performance] was good. I mean, we all wish Darnell well. We don’t like to see that on anybody. But we knew it was a big moment in the game, getting the kill, and they did an excellent job.”

You won’t find a better unintended double entendre in all of sports.

In the end, you could say of Saturday’s big event the nicest thing of all – that it didn’t feel anything like a regular-season hockey game.

What it felt like was a prehistoric form of communication. It took too long for the Oilers to figure out the Leafs were trying to send them a message.

For obvious reasons – the Oilers are sometimes good; the Leafs never are – these two teams have never met in the playoffs.

The Leafs never played Mario Lemieux’s Penguins – at least, not with Mario Lemieux – in the playoffs either. Ditto Sidney Crosby’s Penguins. They got run over by Bobby Orr’s Bruins in three postseasons, managing to win a total of one game.

For a team so fixated on the past, the Leafs don’t have much of one. Not for coming up on 60 years. Dodging so much relevance for so long in a league in which every team whose goalie doesn’t need glasses makes the playoffs is sort of an achievement.

Imagine if the Yankees never played the Red Sox in games that mattered? Or if the 49ers somehow avoided the Cowboys for decades? What would those other leagues look like if their biggest team was off on its own in the corner, turning in slow circles?

If anything it’s a testament to the Leafs marketing department. That a team so removed from the contemporary flow of its surroundings has managed to stay so relevant in its own market. They’ve built an oasis in the desert.

But every once in a while, the Leafs give you a little hint of what it would look like if they weren’t getting turned over the knee of a team from Florida every spring. Think of how nice it would be to get an old-fashioned (read: Canadian) hockey encounter that matters. The sort to make grown men – mostly the ones who work at Rogers Inc. – weep tears of sweet emotional release.

The constantly shifting media landscape has altered the terms of what constitutes the best matchup. It used to be the two biggest markets going against each other. New York vs. Los Angeles was optimal, regardless of the sport. It guaranteed the biggest terrestrial TV audience.

Now the way to draw in punters is narrative. Who’s got the simplest story? Who’s got the encounter that translates most easily into a quickie documentary?

You’re trying to grab a distracted global audience, many of whom may not totally understand what they’re watching. Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson is a good example. How many of the millions who watched that damp squib were fight fans? And how many were there because Netflix convinced them they would be missing out if they skipped it?

Best player in the world vs. biggest team in the world, both astride their communities and their sport, neither of whom have ever met before. That’s a good story, easily told to people who know very little about hockey.

On Saturday night, you could feel the Leafs trying to will it into reality. That’s the only logical reason that Reaves decides to take Nurse off the board on a nothing play in the middle of an otherwise nothing game in November.

The two teams and their combined, if separate, histories are the juice. Reaves just gave it a squeeze. His cheap shot will define the hoped-for encounter to come.

Now all they have to do is win three rounds each – something the Leafs have never done. But if it were easy, it wouldn’t matter.