Postgame: Stormed

Well, that wasn’t so fun.

The Leafs dropped a 4-2 decision in Carolina tonight, where a slow start did them in for the rest of the night. 15-7 ain’t half bad, but a better offensive result against a team with struggling goaltenders would have been nice.

I know hockey players wear a lot of padding, but so do the scorekeepers in Carolina, apparently. The Hurricanes apparently put 29 SHOTS on net during the first period, and broke through twice.

First, it was Trevor Van Riemsdyk:

Apparently, it may be okay to rip the other goalie’s equipment off en route to scoring. The more you know!

Shortly after, Justin Williams would add his 100th as a Hurricane to make it 2-0. Boo.

Before the end of the period, however, John Tavares reminded us that he is, in fact, a Toronto Maple Leaf:

A beautiful solo effort for the unassisted marker, to cut the Hurricanes’ lead to 2-1.

I’m… not entirely sure that hockey makes sense. After registering 29 shots in the first, the Hurricanes only put two late shots on Andersen in a scoreless second period.

This period felt frustrating nevertheless, in the sense that the Leafs very likely should have generated more than they did, and taken advantage of an off period by the offensively-minded Hurricanes. However, a scoreless period was the outcome.

Ron Hainsey with a wretched gift up the middle would find its way ultimately to Michael Ferland, who notched a powerplay marker to put the Hurricanes up for good.

I suppose the silver lining here is… Kasperi Kapanen is still a Leaf:

That’s Kappy being Kappy, and the yougn Fin continues to prove himself a lethal offensive threat, even though the end result was less than desirable.

Final Score: Toronto 2, Carolina 4.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>cane’s leaf’s tn! i hope both teams have so much fun and somehow both win and then william shows up outta nowhere and announces his own re-signing and then slow dances w sebastian aho at centre ice and then i weep tears of bliss</p>&mdash; dylan (@DylanFremlin) <a href=”https://twitter.com/DylanFremlin/status/1065249722900742144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>November 21, 2018</a></blockquote>

Didn’t quite work out that way, did it?

We… we can’t disagree, Omar.

The Leafs are back at it on Friday night in Columbus, hopefully with a stronger offensive showing.