The Leafs had a relatively easy week this time around (especially for a shortened season) playing only 3 games in the last 7 nights.
The week started off on a mixed note, with the Philadelphia Flyers in town for the first meeting of these teams this season, and consequently since the Schenn/JVR trade. Things started off shaky with a rebound from a point shot by the aforementioned Schenn resulting in a Wayne Simmonds goal just 38 seconds in. From there, things were essentially all Toronto after Captain Phaneuf tied the game late in the first. Toronto cruised on to a 5-2 victory, featuring this dandy by JVR.
yeah, that's Luke Schenn who slides away at the end.
The bad news is, however, that James Reimer left the game slightly before the halfway mark with what would turn out to be a strained MCL in his left knee. Ben Scrivens came in in relief, and ended up stopping 32 of 33 shots, looking shaky but dependable.
Two nights later, the Leafs were in Carolina and laid a complete egg against a Hurricanes team playing their first game at home after a long road-trip, starting their back up goaltender Dan Ellis. The game started out with some rough stuff between Colton Orr (who Randy Carlyle seems to be viewing as the second coming of Darren McCarty these days) and Kevin Westgarth before remaining incredibly boring for a period and a half. Quite possibly the most boring game I've seen this year. The second period featured all 4 goals in the game, with Joe Corvo striking first for the 'Canes, Kadri retaliating for the Leafs before Jussi Jokinen and Jordan Staal put it away for Carolina, downing the Leafs 3-1.
Despite this clunker, the Buds headed into Saturday night's game with a record of 3-1 in their last four games. Unfortunately, the injury cloud loomed heavily over this game for both teams, with Gunnarson, Lupul, Frattin and Reimer injured for the Maple Leafs, and notable Sens Jason Spezza and Erik Karlsson on the shelf (the last due to a nasty achilles tendon cut.)
Would the Leafs be able to put the stops to a losing skid before it started?
Would
Which team's injury troubles would pose the most trouble?
Well click on through and we'll talk about how the Leafs fared against the SNES
artist rendition of "sens" third jersey wordmark.
Sens v. Leafs Feb.16.2013
Well, as we should know by now, just because a game's supposed to start at 7:00 doesn't mean it will. Why did this week's puck drop happen around 7:20? Because from the file marked "certainly won't cause anyone to laugh" the Maple Leafs pulled plan "Celebrate a 50 year old cup anniversary" tonight. As such, before the game we were treated to a montage of the Leafs winning their third last Stanley Cup. I wonder if they'll commemorate the 50 year anniversary of '67 during their centennial in 2017?
Anyway, I digress. In addition to the montage, a bunch the surviving heros were paraded out onto the ice in Ford Mustangs. Check it out!
here's the entire 10 minute long ass ford commercial ceremony.
here's johnny bower imparting the role of saviour on ben scrivens to all things of leaf land.
now, go listen to johnny sing "honkey the christmas goose." i'll wait.
So after a bunch of Mustangs drove around the ice, certainly messing it up in no way, some carpets are put down, a fake puck is dropped and the ceremonies are over. An anthem and some commercials later and we're ready to go.
Starting goaltenders in the game are Ben Scrivens and Craig "inappropriate-ogling-between-whistles" Anderson.
seriously.
this guy likes to stare.
While the Leafs have struggled at home, and early, they were able to gain an advantage pretty early on when Frazer McLaren potted his first as a Leaf at 3:14 of the first. Note the good work down low by McClement, aided by returning Mike Brown. Lastly, good job by Fraser getting that shot through.
here's McLaren lowering his PIM/Goals ratio to 50:1
The first continued with neither team really being able to maintain much offensive pressure in the other's zone. The sole powerplay of the period came shortly after the McLaren goal with MacArthur going to the box for boarding. The Leafs PK, which has been on a bit of a hot streak as of late, killed this off allowing only one shot to the Sens over the 2 minutes. The teams continued the first period at a somewhat passive pace, and it was over with a bit of a whimper and no bang with the Leafs outshooting Ottawa 7-5.
During the first intermission, Don Cherry did his very best to illustrate how Karlsson's Achilles would be totally fine if he just taped his ankles up like Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito. Yup. That's totally true.
The second period very much belonged to Ottawa who came out flying, and dominated the period from an offensive standpoint for a good portion of the middle frame. The Leafs twice sent the Senators to the Powerplay, first after a Jay McClement trip at 5:25, and later on a Leo Komarov boarding call at 16:04. The PK remained solid though, and their perfection throughout the game raised their season kill percentage to 80%; a small but solid increase from earlier in the season. The period continued without either team sustaining much offensive pressure, but trading scoring chances occasionally. Scrivens had to be solid, particularly on the PK and a couple of odd-man rushes the Leafs ended up allowing during the long second period changes, but he stopped each of 15 shots Ottawa through his way in the second. The Leafs only managed to muster up 10, 2 of which came during a powerplay late in the second from an Eric Condra slashing high-sticking penalty. The teams headed to the dressing room at the end of the second with the Leafs still up 1-0, with the shots now 24-17 in Ottawa's favour.
Interestingly enough, the Satelitte Hot Stove now features Elliot Friedman as a host? I approve.
When the teams returned for the third, the Leafs had a brief, 40 second man advantage remaining from the second period. This didn't go anywhere. The teams continued to exchange rushes for much of the first half of the period before the Leafs, during a sustained period of pressure from the Leafs top line, Tyler Bozak potted his fifth of the year, tipping home a Dion Phaneuf slap-pass
they ended up reviewing this, 'cause bozie scores a lot of foot-assisted goals.
Insurance goal in place, the team turned its eye to their defensive play, not pressuring the Senators in their own zone, clogging up the neutral zone in an attempt to solidify their goaltenders shutout bid. The Senators didn't have many chances down the stretch, but the team was very solid late in the game killing of a pretty bogus Dion Phaneuf slashing penalty at 16:59 of the last period. Oddly Ottawa didn't pull Anderson during the powerplay. Or he was distracted by a woman in the crowd, and missed the call. Fittingly, during the Leafs' commemoration of their 1963 Stanley Cup Championship team featuring Hockey Hall of Famer and Leaf Legend Johnny Bower, Ben Scrivens strode far out of his net late in the game, and performed a bet of a sprawling poke check to negate a scoring chance for the Sens. I'd like to think this is a subtle homage.
here's a fantastic video of johnny teaching a youngling his moves.
and here's Scrivens dropping one on Condra near the end of the game.
John-Michael Liles would put the icing on the cake for the Leafs late, scoring his first of the season from deep in the Leafs zone on an empty Senators cage, putting the Leafs up 3-0, which would be the final score.
pretty good accuracy there.
Scrivens would indeed hang on for the shut-out, the first of his career, turning away all 34 shots he faced for a perfect 1.00 SV%. Anderson managed to keep his eye 26 of 28 for a pretty solid .929 SV%.
leafs win, scrivens shutout, party time!
Captain Dion Phaneuf led all Leaf players with 24:15 minutes of ice-team. Phil Kessel lead the Leafs with 5 shots. Colton "apparently-not-just-a-face-puncher" Orr skated out for over 12 minutes, having been promoted to Nazem Kadri's line. He managed to block one shot.
Sergei Gonchar lead all Senators in icetime and shots with 27:15 and 5, respectively.
Having been run out of town the Senators will now go to New Jersey tomorrow for a matinee game which they will lose, because New Jersey is surprisingly somehow still a good team, and the Senators are a mediocre team riddled with injuries.
Speaking of mediocre teams riddled with injuries, how does the week look for Colton Orr and our beloved Toronto Maple Leafs?
The Week Ahead
The Leafs will play again Monday night, down on the sunny shores of Florida. Luckily for the Leafs, Florida is a pretty bad team, and has lost their last 3. Unluckily for the Leafs, Florida is a southeast division team, and this is a early week game. Oh, and then all those injuries and whatnot. This is the first meeting between the Leafs and cats this year, but the Panthers swept the seasons series 4-0 last year.
Tuesday night, the Leafs will take on Florida's state rivals, decidedly better team (albeit with a dumber name) The Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa is a former cup champion, and has much more firepower up front. This will also be the first meeting of these teams this season. Oddly, even though Tampa has a much stronger lineup, Toronto swept the season series between these two teams last year, in fairly easy fashion.
From here, the Leafs will get a home game against Buffalo on Thursday, and then wind up back in Toronto to play Ottawa again on Saturday.
So the good news is that you'll get to read another Ottawa/Toronto recap next week (my last two recaps have been shutouts!). The bad news is that it might be a rough week for the Leafs. Going into this past week I expected a minimum of two wins and a probably three. That worked out well. This week seems much less promising. With the sudden surge of injuries (specifically Reimer) that back to back in Florida looks troubling, and we know Buffalo is always a tough one. Hey, at least they'll be able to beat up on Ottawa again on Saturday.
Idealistically I think we're looking at a split this week. One win on the road and one at home - should the Leafs manage that they'll be able to stay solidly in playoff territory, which is about the best we can hope for down a #1 LW, #1 G and #1 D.
Pop by next week and we'll see how that all plays out, I guess.
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