Leafs Postgame: Leafs Lose!

THE RUNDOWN

• Pretty good first period for the Leafs, who really asserted their will for most of the period outside of the first couple of minutes.  All their good play paid off late in the period when Ben Smith deflected in a weak angle shot from Colin Greening.
• What goes up must come down.  Where the Leafs were strong in the opening period, the Bruins were even better in the second.  Patrice Bergeron scored his 29th early on the powerplay, and a few minutes later Zdeno Chara backhanded a shot in past Bernier in front.  2-1 Bruins after two.
• The Leafs made a great push at the end of the game to tie it.  Babcock even pulled the goalie with a whopping 3:48 left on the clock.  But it wasn’t meant to be.  It took them three minutes, but the Bruins eventually got their empty-netter.  3-1 final, and just like that, the Leafs’ run of wins is over.

• A couple of Leafs forwards I liked tonight were P.A. Parenteau and good ole Willy Nylander.  As you might expect in a game where the team only scored one goal, neither was particularly dominant.  But they were good.  Good game for Bozak, too, who was in his second game back from a concussion.
• On defense, really liked Connor Carrick.  Seemed like he was driving play all night.  I wish he’d get a bit of the Martin Marincin treatment wherein he gets some legitimate top-four ice-time and competition.  We’ve seen that he can handle sheltered minutes, so let’s see if he can handle more.
• Apparently he actually has 5 points with the Leafs already, but Milan Michalek has been close to invisible in every game I’ve watched of his with the Leafs.  I wonder how much of a buy-out candidate the Leafs consider him to be right now.
• Seems like you either love him or hate him, but I can’t say I’m a big fan of Connor Brown.  I think he just doesn’t have enough in other areas to overcome his lack of skating ability.

BLUE WARRIOR

SEE YOU MONDAY