Leafs Postgame – Penguins fly, Leafs fall
9 years ago
That wasn’t good. It was bad, even.
The Rundown
For the first couple of minutes, the Leafs looked pretty decent.
For the rest of the minutes, they didn’t.
Patric Hornqvist, who looks like he will score all the points ever playing with Sid, opened the scoring at 6:44 of the first.
Exactly one minute later, this happened:
Sid had an absolutely dominant game. He was on another planet tonight.
The Pens added another one to end the first up 3-0. It was bad.
The Leafs came out in the second with a bit more energy, actually possessing the puck in short little spurts. Eventually, that lead to this beauty.
The Leafs seemed to have a tiny bit of momentum afterwards, and then Evgeni Malkin did this:
Holy moly what a shot. Remember, just a few days ago Malkin didn’t even know if he was game-ready.
After that goal, Glenn Healy sold Gamecentre a lot. I felt like I was trying to buy a used car. Except that I wasn’t at the used car dealership, the salesman just walked into my living room.
Brandon Sutter put the Pens up 5-1, and Tyler Bozak eventually added another one for the Leafs off of an incredible pass from Stuart Percy.
After that, JVR fought Simon Despres. Yay, some emotion.
Blue Warrior
Joffrey Lupul had a pretty solid game tonight. Him and Kadri were the most dangerous forwards in blue and white tonight, continuing from where they left off in the first game. They were so good together that Carlyle put Kessel on their right wing for the duration of the third. Unfortunately, nothing really came of it because the Penguins had the puck the entire time.
Notes
- Is Kessel hurt? He has looked pretty bad. He took two penalties tonight which is very odd for him, the second one being a hook that he would normally not have to make because of his speed.
- If Franson is healthy to play tomorrow, who do you take out of the lineup for him? You can’t take out Percy – he, along with Morgan Rielly, has been the bright spot on the blue line
- Kadri has been really good so far, he was one of two forwards at 50% corsi or better. Winnik was the other one.
- Richard Panik had an okay first game as a Leaf. He got involved physically. I’d like to see him given a look on the second line. Why? Because…
- Brandon Kozun was invisible tonight. I love the underdog story, and he’s a ball of energy, but he was completely out of his element with Lupul and Kadri
No Time to Sulk
The Leafs are back tomorrow, as they visit the Rangers for New York’s home opener at 7:00 (CityTV). They also lost today (5-2 to Columbus), so expect their energy to be high looking to start off positive at home.
Join us for our game preview tomorrow!
Recent articles from Bobby Cappuccino
