Sorry for the blank space, I felt like I needed to honour the Red Kelly celebration by starting this article a bit later than you were expecting.

Nevertheless, the Leafs come to Detroit playing their first game in more than a week, and it’s also the Maple Leafs debut for Jake Muzzin, who, in case you haven’t heard, the Leafs traded for on Monday. It was kind of a big deal.

Yeah, let’s not really talk about that period. They picked it up later on, but the start was rough, although it probably had to do with both the rust and the new defense pairings. We’ll chalk this one up as the adjustment period.

The second was much more interesting, although not in the Leafs favour at first. The Wings opened the scoring midway through the second with a goal from Gustav Nyquist, and suddenly the lifeless Leafs looked like they might already be out of the game.

That’s a big emphasis on the “might” though, as late in the second, Patrick Marleau set up Auston Matthews for his first goal in over a week (although it’s his second in as many games), and the Leafs have a tie game going into the intermission.

Matthews goal seemed to motivate both teams going into the third, as the third period was actually exciting, and the teams seemed to get more chances. Both Howard and Andersen held strong for the most part, and neither of them cracked until late in the third when Dylan Larkin just snuck the puck past Freddy on the power play to give the Wings the lead again.

But, this one was very short lived, as the Leafs put the pressure on with the goalie pulled and Patrick Marleau knocked the puck in with the shaft of his stick to tie the game. Much like the last couple games against Detroit, the Leafs held on and sent it to overtime.

The Leafs and Wings exchanged chances, and even managed to injure Larkin just by being faster than him.

Unfortunately, you aren’t awarded points for making the other team lose their star player to a groin injury, and Danny DeKeyser scored off of a Nyquist pass to win the game for the Wings.

Now it’s time to figure out “Who Wore the Crown?” brought to you by Crown Royal, which goes to the hardest working Leaf who plays the “Toronto Way”.

And since Toronto is known for their skill and speed nowadays, this one has to go to #34, who scored the first goal for the Leafs, and more importantly, setting up the game tying goal by Patrick Marleau. Not just that, but in a game where it seemed like the Leafs couldn’t put anything together, he managed to come out of it with a 53.85 CF% at 5v5.

Yeah, it wasn’t the prettiest game, but they managed to get a point out of it, and I feel like this effort is more because they know they had to play another game 22.5 hours after this game had just started. We’ll have to see what kind of effort they put in tomorrow against the Penguins.

And Jake Muzzin’s Leafs debut wasn’t exactly notable, but that’s what you should expect when he’s joining a team in a new conference, playing with new players, particularly Rielly, who is also adjusting to playing on the right side. However, he managed to come out of this game with a 55.56% 5v5 CF%, so maybe he is a Corsi god.

If you missed the Buds for the last week and a half, they’re making up for it this weekend with another game tomorrow against the Penguins in Toronto, who are also coming in on a back to back like Toronto.