Leafs Postgame: Cane’t explain that

You know that old motivational poster of the cat hanging off the edge of a cliff where it says “hang in there?”

Basically sums up the Leafs tonight.

It was not a pretty night in terms of puck possession. The Leafs did not play very well, and very nearly almost blew it. The Leafs managed just 39 shot attempts the whole night in all situations.

But hey, that’s hockey. Might be their worst game of the year.

Still scored five. We’ll take it.

There were no goals from either side, and not a whole lot coming from the Toronto contingent. At the watercooler tomorrow, you’re not going to discuss the first period at all. The Leafs had four shots on goal and eight attempts, if you were counting at home.

Carolina was skating all over Toronto, and it looked like it might be a long night for the Buds if they didn’t get things going.

On their ninth shot attempt, however, the Leafs found paydirt.

Zach Hyman began the scoring with a well placed wrist shot from in close, set up by some superb Jake Gardiner skating.

On their thirteenth shot attempt, Josh Leivo put the Leafs up 2-0 (which was also his second of the year…. and then Old Man Ron Hainsey made it 3-0 good guys. (excuse the confusing, out of order and improperly labelled GIFs, nice boy Dylan Fremlin was v. busy tonight and also flustered because he loves the Canes.)

Once again showing that you can’t predict ball, the Leafs scored the first three goals of the hockey game.

Derek Ryan – no relation to Bobby, Rob, Rex, or Nolan, to our knowledge, made it 3-1….

So then of course JVR put the buds up 4-1 to enter the third.

James van Riemsdyk’s goal, the Leafs’ fourth, was on their 14th shot on net of the game.

Shots were 27-16 in Carolina’s favour after two.

Hockey is a silly sport sometimes… which is why we were set up for a classic Toronto Maple Leafs Third Period™.

It’s 2017 and the Staal brothers are still doing things in the NHL.

Tonight, Jordan scored against the Leafs to make the game closer.

Fortunately, our father Patrick made it 5-2 good guys.

Should be smooth sailing, right?
Well, no, not quite.

Elias Lindholm put the game within two  by scoring the 5-3 goal with a little over six minutes to go… and Noah Hanifin put the game within one with 4:11 to go.

Then the Leafs played the NHL equivalent of prevent defence… gave up a boatload of shots, could barely skate the puck out their zone, failed to score on an empty net in a little over two minutes, and…. held on. In the last 11 minutes of the game, the Leafs had one shot attempt.

5-4 final.
Just. Win. Baby.

Some happy Carolina fans!

An easy shot but a mostly true one:

Please be nice to Jon for this one:

And then our BlueJaysNation friend Andy summed up the life of a Leafs’ fan perfectly.

Ugly two points, but it counts. See you for Washington tomorrow night.