COLLINGWOOD, ONT. – The Toronto Maple Leafs started this week's team-bonding trip in cottage country by taking shots at each other, literally. The team took part in a paintball match on Tuesday, which even included head coach Randy Carlyle. 

And the players did not hesitate to take shots at the man, who controls their ice time. 

"I’d be taking it for sure," said centre Nazem Kadri, when asked what he'd do if given a free shot at Carlyle. "But I guess, lucky for him, he was on my team."

"Shoot him?" said Joffrey Lupul, who also played for Carlyle in Anaheim. "I’ve known him for 10 years. For sure, you get the chance to shoot him you gotta shoot him."

Carlyle doesn't blame his players. "When you’re in that environment, in a small area, I don’t really think you have a choice: it’s either be shot or shoot at," he said in a matter-of-fact tone. 

"Quite a few of the staff were involved," said captain Dion Phaneuf, "so as soon as you get out there, they got camouflage on as well so they’re fair game."

The Leafs trip will run through Thursday and includes the 29 players remaining in camp. On Wednesday, the group did some CrossFit training in the morning and played a round of golf in the afternoon. 

But whether all this together time will translate to better play on the ice remains open to debate. Los Angeles Kings coach Darryl Sutter recently told reporters that he doesn’t think such ventures yield results. 

"I’m not into that, what you hear about: go climbing ropes and going to a fort somewhere," Sutter, who guided L.A. to two Stanley Cup titles in the three seasons, told reporters. "You do most of your bonding in May and June, quite honest.

"If you've got to go somewhere to learn about your personality, you probably have a disorder," he said.

Carlyle, who led the Anaheim Ducks to a championship in 2007, isn’t 100 per cent sure that team bonding leads to wins, but he does know one thing. "Successful teams usually have united teams," he said. "So, is it having success that unites the group or is it the uniting of the group that gives you success? It’s the chicken-before-the-egg theory. But we think that it’s imperative that your players have the opportunity to get to know one another both at the rink and away from the rink."

Lupul does believe it is important that players relate to each other on a personal level. 

"Well, it’s part of it for sure," the Leafs alternate captain explained. "Everyone wants to care about their teammates and it's good to learn a little bit about a guy's background and their family and that stuff you don’t get typically coming to the rink and doing your job."

Regardless of whether the trip helps the club in the standings or not it is clear that the Leafs are enjoying themselves. The paintball post-mort certainly provided lots of potshots. 

"Dion was active," said Lupul with a grin when asked for his list of standout performers. "I don’t know if he was good or bad, but he was certainly active and Phil somehow bought a different gun than everyone else so he had a more high-powered semi-automatic weapon whereas we just had regular ones."

"Dion's pretty good," said Kadri. "Apparently he plays a fair bit in the summertime. I think Phil was hiding behind a couple guys so I have to say he may have been the worse."

"Lots of guys stood out," said Phaneuf. "I wouldn’t even want to guess the amount of rounds we went through. There was lots of paint that was used. We weren’t sparing paint balls, that’s for sure."