OH, BABY!
JP Nikota
October 22 2011 08:36PM
Oh. My. Grabovski. What a goal.
The Leafs turned in what may be their most complete game effort this season to defeat the Montreal Canadiens 5-4 in overtime. The Habs are now winless in three consecutive games at home for the first time in a long time, and having Montreal fan favorite Mikhail Grabovski score the winner adds just the right salt and spice to the wound.
BENJAMIN SCRIVENS, STOP DROOLING NOW!
JP Nikota
October 20 2011 08:13PM
Jonas Gustavsson has allowed 17 goals in his last three starts. If he wants to remain an NHL goaltender for much longer, he seems to be confused about how to go about doing that. There were several goals scored tonight that would be unfair to blame on him, but that fifth goal was absolutely brutal, and that's one bad goal too many for a guy fighting to remain in the league.
To say that goaltending was the difference tonight would be disingenuous to say the least, but the disparity in talent between the pipes sure didn't help, either.
RETURN OF THE KESSEL
JP Nikota
October 15 2011 09:29PM
Like in their previous two starts, the Leafs took the first period to wake up, and quickly fell behind 2-0 to a hard-working Calgary Flames team. A defensive miscommunication between Nikolai Kulemin and John-Michael Liles, and a bad bounce off a Leafs' defenceman's skate both left Reimer with almost no chance.
Luckily for the Leafs, Calgary had some trouble staying out of the box. The Leafs never scored on the PP, but it definitely helped to keep the puck out of their end while they remembered how to play hockey.
More On PK Specialists
JP Nikota
October 13 2011 09:14AM
When I last wrote about this issue, fellow LeafsNation contributor The '67 Sound rightly pointed to two issues in the study: 1) Sample size is something of a problem, and 2) Corsi numbers would probably be more accurate, as the stat represents an increase in sample size in and of itself, since it's counting shots instead of goals. I'll admit it: I was getting lazy.
Hot Phil, Cold Third
JP Nikota
October 08 2011 09:02PM
In the second period of the game, with the Leafs leading 4-0, it seemed fitting to begin writing this game recap with a reminder of the brutal turn for the worse that the Leafs' last season took, right after they jumped out to a 4-0-0-0 start. "Let's not let anyone get ahead of themselves", I was going to say.
By the end of the third period, however, there really was no need to remind anyone that this year's Leafs' squad isn't so different that last year's incarnation. We had plenty of in-game reminders.
In a perfect world, the fact that the Leafs actually managed to hold off their opponents would be a sign that instead of coughing up the lead in these games, they'd finally learned to close out a game. Really though, the Sens should never have had a hope.
Nuts to moral victories though, we'll take the two points.
