I think this applies for a lot of the Blue Jackets players, such as Nutivaara, Savard, Bjorkstrand, etc., but it seems like Cam Atkinson has quietly been a good player for a long time, and his 41 goals last year didn’t receive much fanfare.

Now, it doesn’t exactly seem like Atkinson can drive the C-Bus, and only has 2 goals and an assist now that his A-list teammates have relocated, but Atkinson is an under the radar threat, as much as any All-Star player can be and it will be interesting to see if the Leafs slump busting defense helps him out tonight.

Speaking of underrated players, Josh Anderson has been pulled off the injured reserve and will be looking to have his Brayden Point moment tonight.

The last thing I want to do is dump all over the Leafs first win this season against a good team, especially when that win came against the organization’s measuring stick, annual playoff nemesis, and the came without John Tavares in the lineup. The team needed the win and got it, largely on the back of Freddie Andersen who had some demons he needed to deal with against Boston as well.

It will be interesting to see if the Leafs some momentum off the win and if we are heading for happier days with smoother waters and bluer skies.

I can’t be the only one who found the third period of the game against the Bruins incredibly hard to watch. Turning off the offense, which drives the Leafs, in favour of sitting back on their defensive position, which we have years of evidence pointing to be a shortcoming, seems like an incredibly bad idea. Yet here we are again, watching Freddie Andersen get shelled. Watching the puck get skated to the center line so it can be dumped into the Bruins end. Finally, we get the inevitable top line goal that pushes the game to overtime. It was nice to have the good outcome this time, but can we acknowledge that good things don’t happen when the Leafs stop applying pressure? Can we make that one simple change in how the team is coached? I’m willing to shut up about all other things if the Leafs just start playing an offensively driven game no matter the score.

It’s fun watching the two of them play together, though I hate it comes at the cost of William Nylander. I’ve made my case for the Tavares-less Leafs line blender options, which would have Nylander playing with Kapanen and Johnsson, but the Leafs still refuse to listen to me, so here we are hoping that Nylander can click with Kerfoot and Mikheyev, while Matthews and Marner have the time of their lives. In reality, this move makes sense as Marner seems to be much more dependent on a strong offensive catalyst than Nylander.

There hasn’t been a lot to be excited about with Ceci in the past few games, and with the thrill of him meeting the low expectations set for him in the early days of the season behind us, we’re now looking at a player who consistently makes poor decisions and is seemingly always out of position.

Ceci scored the last time the Leafs played Columbus and perhaps if he can repeat that fluke, we’ll forget that he’s been pretty bad.