Welcome back for another week of discussion about everybody's favourite Canadian NHL team,
the Toronto Maple Leafs.
This week the Leafs found themselves right in the thick of the playoff race to start things off, with a slew of teams nipping at their heels. How would the Leafs make out in their 3 games under these circumstances?
Could they overcome their poor luck against southeast opponents during midweek home games?
(i hope so, or realignment is going to suck.)
Could they take advantage of their monthly home game in Buffalo?
Could they finally defeat the Bruins?
you can do it, Phil. We believe in you.
I don't know (well, I do, but what's the fun in telling you here?) So why don't you hit the jump and we'll find out together?
The Week That Was:
Tampa outshot Toronto 28-26, but 11 of their shots came in the third when the Leafs had decided to sit back and protect the lead.
James Reimer picked up the win, stopping 26 of 28 for a .929 SV%
Mathieu Garon got the start for Tampa and took the loss, but was pulled in the second after allowing 3 goals on 18 shots.
Also of note in this one was a hit by Joffrey Lupul on Victor Hedman early in the third. Lupul's been incredibly energetic since his return, and it kind of came back to bite him in this one. Somewhat overzealously, Lupul came at Hedman from the side, and made contact with his hide. Lupul was assessed a two-minute minor on the play, but Sheriff Shanahan deemed additional discipline necessary, and Lupes was suspended for two games the next day. Well, shit. The next day, on a similarly dodgy hit, Rick Nash was not suspended. Regardless of what Glen Healy thinks, that's a bit of horse doody. Also, it's somewhat sad that Guy Boucher lost his job a mere 5 days after this. Methinks this loss may have been one of the final straws?
the first coach to get a penalty for the "herp face"
The next night, the Maple Leafs headed down to Buffalo to take on the Lindy Ruff-less Sabres - no time to cry over losing Lupul (again), it would seem. This was a bit of a wild affair. Two minutes in, a mini-donnybrook broke out. Colton Orr went crazy and picked up 29 minutes in penalties in 2 seconds of icetime. Fraser Mclaren fought somebody too. It was... rather eventual. From there, a back and forth goal scoring competition would begin.
Toronto headed to the dressing room for the first intermission up 2-1 on goals from Bozak and Kadri.
Grabbo would pot another in the second, but Buffalo would rally, and we'd head to the third tied 3-3.
Come the third, Buffalo would take the lead early on a Christan Ehroff goal, but Kadri would tie things up 5 minutes later (on another tip) and we'd head to overtime. Overtime was a particularly exciting affair, but the Leafs couldn't beat Miller a fifth time. This trend would repeat itself in the shootout, which Buffalo would win 2-1 to take the game at a 'score' of 5-4.
Buffalo edged the Leafs out in shots, 36-34.
Reimer got the start for the Buds and stopped 32 of 36 for an .889 SV%
Ryan Miller stopped 30 of 34 a .882 SV% and the win.
This brings us up to our game of the week.
Bruins v Maple Leafs - March 23 2013
So the Bruins came into town Saturday night for HNIC's typical 'Marquee Matchup'.
What's the reason for 20 minutes of delays this week?
Well, Mats Sundin was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame a bit ago, and thanks
to the lockout, we haven't had a chance to honour that shit yet. Of course, this means ol' Mats
had to be trotted out to centre ice, watch a video and drop a puck.
Exciting!
here's what that looked like. y'know in case you were curious.
Starts for this matchup were James "am I the starter or what?" Reimer up against Anton "yummy-pucks" Khudobin.
this guy played for Minnesota, too? Wild!
This one too, had a bit of a crazy start.
Just under five minutes in (4:58 to be precise), a streaking Nazem Kadri would take a neat little relay pass from Clarke MacArthur and deposit it squarely into the back of the net.
i love watching Kadri play.
This goal would catapult Naz into the top ten in league scoring, and was just damn pretty.
what? it's true.
Now, because hockey isn't just a goal scoring competition, and because some dudes need to earn a paycheque, and 'cause people are just effing dumb, Colton Orr and Shawn Thornton engaged in a little fisticuffs like, right off the next faceoff. Like, immediately after the goal.
I bet that got Boston going, right?
Well, maybe... Sort of?
Boston would pressure the Leafs pretty intensely for the duration of the period, really, save a short two minute span wherein they'd be shorthanded due to a Aaron Johnson high-stick. The Leafs would fail to capitalize on this opportunity, and the period would end with Toronto leading 1-0, but getting outshot 11-4.
ouch.
Don Cherry showed up, and I went to get beer, 'cause I'm classy like that, and won't always watch the tripe my tax dollars pay for.
Kids in the Hall. Always relevant to CBC spending rants.
The teams returned to the ice for the second period with much of the same gusto and intensity as earlier.
Despite Toronto being fairly dominated possesion-wise, Toronto was able to generate a little more offense in this period, potentially spurned on by a louder than usual ACC.
Toronto would extend their lead to 2-0 early in the second, as Mikhail Grabovski notched his 8th of the year on an awesome solo effort. He pretty much picks the puck up at his own blueline, skates through half the Bruins, loses the puck in their zone, battles to get it back, and fires a shot home through the screen. I love me some Grabbo, yessir, I do.
yum, pineapple power
Hey, Randybobandy. See what happens when Grabbo gets appropriate ice time?
MRW
It should be noted that operation :"give-kadri-more-icetime" has been initiated, and that's going to go a long way to giving Grabbo better minutes, and cutting down on some of those awful fourth line minutes.So with the Leafs up 2-0 against a bitter divisonal rival and decent friggin' hockey team in the Bruins, Toronto began to sit back and attempt to hold the lead. Reimer was quite solid in the middle frame, and the Leafs didn't look terrible. Toronto picked up a powerplay late in the second (Matt Bartkowski - skating too close to a guy, aka interference) but was unable to capitalize. Toronto scored early and didn't succumb to pressure during points throughout the period - this gave them a 2-0 lead going into the third, despite being outshot 9-5 in the second, and 20-9 so far on the game. It's worth noting that John-Michael Liles left the game late in the second frame after colliding with Dan Paille along the boards. Toronto would later describe his ailments as a "lower body injury". This left the Leafers with just 5 d-men for the duration of the matchup.
In the second intermission, there was a satelitte hotstove. I hate the name of this segment, and generally find it boring, but the introduction of Elliot Friedman as the host has pushed it up a peg or two. Bravo, guys.
The third period started with Toronto in a weird position - up 2 goals on the Boston Bruins. Having not beaten this team in 8 games (they only play 6 times a season) this wasn't exactly a luxury the boys in blue find themselves faced with often.
Things continued going more fortuitously for Toronto as, during one of their regularly scheduled parades up and down the ice, the fourth line would manage to get some sustained pressure during a forecheck. Orr starts things off with a pretty solid hit. He and McClement would scrum the puck free along the boards, then work a pass out front to wide-open Frazer McLaren, who would score his career high third goal on this inverted Pavel Bure skate to stick deal.
prettiest goal of the night, for sure.
Things were looking pretty good for the Leafs, up 3 goals with under 20 to play.
For some reason, either for allowing this crazy beauty of a goal, or maybe just for allowing
8 goals on 11 shots (.727 SV%) the Bruins pulled Khudobin after this point.
Tuuka Rask would come in as his replacement at this point, as the Bruins tried to shore things
up and get back into the match.
Perhaps motivated by the always-inspiring goaltender change, the Bruins stormed the Leafs zone.
Just 56 seconds later, they'd net their first tally of this match up as Dennis Seidenberg would fire home a rocket from the point.
...YouTube doesn't like this goal though, so you can't see it.
With the lead shortened to 2 goals, the game really started to open up a bit, with the teams exchanging a few quality scoring chances each. The Bruins would have a prime opportunity to close the gap on a Carl Gunnarson tripping penalty, but the "NEW IMPROVED" Leafs penalty kill shut that down.
The Bruins certainly had their chances in this period, with Dougie Hamilton hitting two posts and Reimer making several big stops against the Bruins scorers. Claude Julien would take a gamble and pull Tuuka Rask for the extra attacker with just under 2 minutes to play. For the first time in a while, the ploy turned out to be useful.
With the extra attacker on the ice and screens-a-plenty set up in front of Reimer, Andrew Ference fired his second of the year home at 18:44 of the third period to pull the Bruins within one.
Of course, YouTube doesn't seem to like this goal either... hey, it was a point shot. They scored. I'm sure you can envision it.
The final few minutes were particularly scrambly, but the Leafs managed to hang on, and took this one 3-2,
partially on the back of some nice defensive play in the final 90 seconds.
but Kessel still never backchecks, right?
Of note, this was the first time in 8 games that Toronto had beaten Boston.
(you probably caught wind of this in the press)
The Leafs didn't play terribly, but they didn't play well.
Shots on the evening were 33-13 (!!!) in favour of Boston.
Reimer kind of stole this one for Toronto, stopping 31 of those 33 for a .939 SV% - many of his stops were particularly timely, preventing Boston from getting back into this one until it was far too late.
Dion Phaneuf led all skaters with 25:53 of ice-time.
One funny last stat: in terms of CORSI (like +/-, but with 'shot events' instead of goals) only one Toronto Maple Leafs was even on the night (had as many shots directed at his net as the oppositions during his time on ice) - that player? Colton Orr. Ouch
All in all, it wasn't a terrible week for the Buds - many had the "magic number of points" at attaining 5 of a possible 6 points, and that's what happened. It would have been sweetened up by beating Buffalo instead of losing in a shootout, but who figured Toronto would beat Boston? That's the crazy world of hockey, one supposed.
As it stands the Leafs presently sit in in 6th place with 37 points; one point up on 7th place New Jersey, three points back of 5th place Ottawa. The week ahead for the Buds is definitely busy, and somewhat difficult. Tonight they'll be in Boston as the Bruins seek retribution for Saturday's loss. Tomorrow night, they'll be back home hosting the Florida Panthers. Wednesday night they'll have off, then they're back in action Thursday facing the Hurricanes at home, and the week finishes off Saturday against the Sens at Leafsbank Place in Ottawa.
They'll start the week off tonight, looking to keep the streak alive against the Bruins.
Lineups will look fairly similar to Saturday, but with Lupul returning, and Kostka likely to
suit up in place of the injured JML. Starter? That's anybody's guess.
Odds and Sodds:
The Komisarek Chronicles:
So, after "not" requesting a trade several weeks ago, Mike Komisarek did recently waive his no-movement clause, allowing the Maple Leafs to send him to the Marlies. Interestingly enough, this did entail waiving Komisarek, who surprisingly was not picked up by any teams wishing to enlist his services at half-price. How about that? Good riddance, I say, as this is one of the last steps in line to Mad Mike's compliance buyout this summer.
The Iginla Inquest:
So it appears as though Jarome Iginla has supplied Jay Feaster with a list of 4 teams he'd accept a trade to.
These destinations?
Los Angeles, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Boston.
Pittsburgh seems out of the race, given they just picked up Morrow.
That does still leave Boston though. Please, not Boston.
Chicago would be damned funny, though.
Either way, thus begins the long and winding road of Calgary attempting to learn how to rebuild, and not turn into a permanent version of the 2008 Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Trade Deadline:
Yup, the NHL's annual trade-day fiasco is quickly approaching.
Are you prepared to sit by your computer for hours at end learning that "x may be interested in y. more as it develops."
I'm not entirely sure what the Leafs are going to be looking to do, but with the impending UFA status of Bozak looming, question marks in the centre position, and a distinct need for further defensive help, here's to hoping that Nonis makes some moves in his first year at the helm of the blue and white.
#FreeJakeGardiner
So Jaker was indeed freed last night, sending Holzer down to the Marlies to patrol the blueline with Mike Komisarek. Gardiner has looked serviceable in his most recent games, but still needs time adjusting to NHL speed again, it seems. His offensive prowess has been pretty evident, and he's been able to provide Toronto with that solid first pass, so once his defensive zone coverage shores back up, I think we'll all be pretty happy to have Mr. Silverstick back in the lineup.
The Week Ahead:
Yikes.
This has the making of a rough week.
Game against the Bruins? Check.
Tuesday night at home against a Southeast opponent? Check.
Game against the Staal Brothers? Check.
Ottawa? Well, whatever.
So 4 games in 7 nights, eh?
8 possible points up for grabs?
I'd say a good best case scenario for this week is about 5 points.
There should be wins against Florida and Ottawa.
Getting at least a point out of either Boston or Carolina would push the Buds over the .500 mark.
Any additional points would just be great at this point in time, but the Leafs record against the Hurricanes and Bruins of late is a little worrisome.
That said, they've managed to stop themselves from becoming the dreaded "18-wheeler" again so far this year. Let's hope it can continue, right? Go Leafs Go.
Anyway, check back here this time next week, and we'll see how things turned out.
Feel free to drop a comment and add to the discussion, that's what we're all about here.
No comments:
Post a Comment