Leafs Postgame: Too Little, Too Late

Not to be super lame, but it was hardly a Hall of Fame effort from the Leafs tonight. Despite only losing to the Pittsburgh Penguins by a score of 2-1, it wasn’t all that close of a game until the dying minutes. After thoroughly dominating the Bruins on Wednesday, the Leafs forgot whatever made them great.

While not a whole lot happened during the first twenty minutes of play, it was evident that Pittsburgh was the better team and Toronto would have difficulty containing them. I’d question why Randy Carlyle decided it was a good idea to match the Peter Holland line up against the Sidney Crosby line, but let’s be honest – it’s Crosby. The Leafs don’t have anything that could shut him down. Holland would finish the game with a 29% Corsi For rating. 

Things picked up slightly in the second. Pascal Dupuis would deflect a Christian Ehrhoff point shot past Jonathan Bernier to put the Penguins up by one. Just 15 seconds into the third, it’d be Dupuis again on a great pass from Crosby to put the Penguins ahead 2-0.

To keep things interesting, Cody Franson would finally put a puck past Penguins backup Thomas Greiss. That probably should have been the most exciting part of the game to me, but a few moments later when Dion Phaneuf laid a huge hit on Patric Hornqvist and was subsequently jumped by Evgeni Malkin.

I think you have to give it to Bernier, who 38 of 40 shots on goal and finished with a .950 SV%. More importantly, he did this…