We can win a game? really, we can? Miracles!

• Wins: 26
• losses: 30
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 56

. recap.

Maple Leafs top Oilers 4-3 in OT
Thursday, 02.16.2012 / 1:55 AM
Tim Connolly and the Toronto Maple Leafs both ended painful slumps on Wednesday night.

Connolly ended a 17-game dry spell when he scored 1:39 into overtime to give Toronto a 4-3 victory against the Edmonton Oilers at Rexall Place on Wednesday night, ending the Maple Leafs’ losing streak at four games.

The Oilers overcame deficits of 2-0 and 3-2 to force overtime on Jordan Eberle’s goal with 4:04 left in regulation and had a chance to win in the extra period when they came on a 3-on-1 break. But Dion Phaneuf raced back to pick Ryan Whitney’s pocket and start a 3-on-1 the other way. Joffrey Lupul carried up the left side and put the puck on Connolly’s stick for a tap-in.

“That was a huge win for us,” said Toronto defenseman Jake Gardiner, whose goal early in the third period put the Leafs ahead 3-2. “You don’t lose four games in a row all that often and when you do it’s not a great feeling. That fifth game means a lot and I’m happy we got it.”

The win gives the Leafs 64 points, three more than ninth-place Washington in the scramble for playoff berths in the Eastern Conference, and a split of two games in Alberta — they lost 5-1 at Calgary on Tuesday. Toronto has two days off before wrapping up a Western Canada trip Saturday in Vancouver.

“That last game was a tough one to swallow,” Leafs defenseman Cody Franson said. “This was a big game for us as a result. It was kind of a must-have two points after the way our last four have gone. We battled hard to get the points tonight.”

Edmonton had its four-game winning streak at Rexall Place snapped, though the Oilers did get a point in a game they trailed 2-0 before many of the 16,839 fans had found their seats.

“When we’ve got multiple lines going like we did tonight, we’re a dangerous team,” Eberle said. “We need that to happen more often.”

The Leafs broke a 2-2 tie at 6:46 of the third period, 10 seconds into their second power play of the night. With Ryan Jones off for delay of game after flipping the puck into the crowd, Gardiner teed up a straightaway slapper from just inside the blue line and fired it through a screen past Nikolai Khabibulin for his third of the season.

But Eberle capped nearly a minute of pressure when he took a feed from Whitney, battled through David Steckel’s check and stepped into the slot before wristing his 25th of the season over James Reimer’s glove and just under the crossbar.

The Oilers got a power play with 2:06 left in regulation when Darryl Boyce was called for hooking Taylor Hall as Hall drove to the net, but were unable to capitalize.

“We had a slow start but came back hard and played a good game,” said Oilers’ forward Ben Eager, who scored Edmonton’s first goal. We had our chances to win, but unfortunately couldn’t convert.”

With supporters in the full house at Rexall Place chanting “Go Leafs Go,” Toronto needed just 40 seconds to make them happy by grabbing a 1-0 lead. Lupul grabbed a loose puck and wristed it past Khabibulin after the Oilers were unable to clear the zone.

It became 2-0 just 58 seconds later when Franson fired a long pass from his own zone that caught Matthew Lombardi in full flight during a bad change by the Edmonton defense. Lombardi raced in and wristed a shot past Khabibulin for his seventh of the season and a 2-0 lead for the Leafs just 1:38 into the game.

But before the Leafs could enjoy their two-goal margin, half of it disappeared. The Oilers forechecked hard, Lennart Petrell beat his man and centered a pass into the slot, where Eager ripped it past Reimer at 2:32.

Both teams had chances during the rest of the period, which ended with the Leafs up 2-1 on the scoreboard and 14-10 on the shot clock.
“The guys stabilized themselves, they settled down and tried to make it less of a track meet start — minimize the damage,” Oilers coach Ton Renney said. “I thought they did a good job of that.”

But the second period belonged to the Oilers. Edmonton outshot Toronto 13-3 in the middle 20 minutes and tied the score at 8:15 when Hall raced past Nikolai Kulemin to the net and deflected Sam Gagner’s pass behind Reimer for his 20th of the season. Ales Hemsky nearly put the Oilers ahead late in the period, but he rang the post on a breakaway after beating Franson.

Hemsky rang the post again 1:07 into the third period after clearly beating Reimer from the right circle. Reimer denied Hemsky again with 6:30 left after he danced past the defense and cut in from the left circle in search of the tying goal.

“They were coming at us full speed but we gathered ourselves together in the third period,” Toronto coach Ron Wilson said. “I was happy that we got it to overtime.
“We did a lot of good things tonight and rebounded off of how we played in Calgary.”

People wonder why I don’t watch hockey anymore? lol.

• Wins: 25
• losses: 30
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 54

. recap.

Flames cruise past Leafs, 5-1
Wednesday, 02.15.2012 / 12:49 AM
CALGARY — Hockey fans in Calgary were a lot more welcoming to the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs than the Flames were at the Scotiabank Saddledome on Tuesday night.

In front of a decidedly pro-Maple Leafs crowd, Toronto was shown a lot less love by the Flames — on Valentine’s Day, no less — handing the Maple Leafs a 5-1 loss and pushing Toronto’s losing streak to a season-high four games.

“I’m kind of disappointed we let them down,” coach Ron Wilson said. “There’s a huge Leaf contingent.”

The victory maintains Calgary’s dominance over Toronto on home ice. The Flames haven’t lost to the Maple Leafs in Calgary since Dec. 27, 2002 — a string of seven consecutive games.

Calgary had especially little affection for Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf, back for just the second time since being dealt from Calgary on Jan. 31, 2010. Despite the rambunctious crowd cheering on the road team, Phaneuf was loudly booed by the Flames faithful every time he touched the puck.

Alex Tanguay, who finished with a goal and two assists, wasn’t about to admit to hearing the jeers.

“I didn’t hear anything,” Tanguay said. “We knew that he’d get fired up for this game.”

Flames fans ended up with the last cheer despite some tense moments to start the game.

The teams traded posts early on. Seeing his first action in seven games after an injury sidelined Carl Gunnarsson, Mike Komisarek rang the crossbar on a seeing-eye shot from the point just 1:44 in. Jarome Iginla countered by finding iron at 4:28.

But Tanguay found the back of the net just 15 seconds later. Taking a pass from the corner from Olli Jokinen, Tanguay fired the puck over the blocker of goalie Jonas Gustavsson to give the Flames a 1-0 lead.

Tanguay returned the favor at 8:13. After hesitating with the puck at the Toronto blue line, Iginla sprung Tanguay and Jokinen in on a 2-on-1. Tanguay found Jokinen, who one-timed the pass into the net before Gustavsson could react.

Miikka Kiprusoff did his best to keep the Maple Leafs off the board, making a glove save after Joffrey Lupul deflected a Phaneuf point shot. On the ensuing faceoff, Toronto broke through on its 14th shot of the period. Tyler Bozak set up on Kiprusoff’s doorstep and managed to bang home his sixth goal in eight games with 3:18 remaining in the period to bring the Leafs within one.

Phil Kessel almost evened the game at 7:01 of the second period. Rushing down the slot, Kessel one-timed a pass flush off the crossbar. The misfortune proved costly for Toronto near the midway mark of the game.

After taking a lob-pass from Cory Sarich, recently-recalled Paul Byron streaked in all alone on Gustavsson. Before Byron could get his shot off, he was hauled down by Phaneuf and awarded a penalty shot. Byron picked up the puck, came down the middle and went wide right before cutting back and firing a shot past Gustavsson’s blocker to put the Flames up 3-1 at 9:15.

“It’s just the same move as I do every day in practice or in any other penalty shot or shootout … just stay calm, stay focused,” Byron said. “I made a couple fakes, read what the goalie gives me and just make the best move.”

It is the second consecutive game the Flames have received a goal from a player immediately after being summoned from the Abbotsford Heat, Calgary’s American Hockey League affiliate. Roman Horak scored in his NHL return Saturday against the Vancouver Canucks.

“There’s a lot of opportunity here,” Byron said. “There’s a lot of important guys out of the lineup. I think other guys on the team have got to step up and respond to that and I think everyone’s doing that.”

Gustavsson did his best to keep the Maple Leafs in the game in the third.

After Tanguay put the puck over the net on a partial breakaway, he turned aside a Blake Comeau blast near the midway mark of the third period.

But Comeau eventually got the better of Gustavsson, taking a Michael Cammalleri pass from behind the net and putting it over the glove of the goaltender with 4:51 remaining in the game. Iginla added another with 2:16 left, firing the puck over Gustavsson’s glove for his 22nd goal of the season.

“That’s how the game’s going to be when we have to gamble a bit,” Gustavsson said. “It doesn’t really matter in the end if you lose 3-1 or 5-1. At least we gave it a chance to come back.”

The pair of tallies iced the game for Calgary and gave Kiprusoff his 302nd career victory, tying Turk Broda for 25th on the all-time list.

“He’s won a Vezina,” Phaneuf said of Kiprusoff, who stopped 41 shots. “He knows how to win games. He’s one of the top goalies in the League. He’s had a lot of success and he played extremely well tonight for them.”

not surprised. really. I’m not.

• Wins: 25
• losses: 29
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 54

. recap.

Canadiens rout Leafs to spoil Sundin’s night
Saturday, 02.11.2012 / 11:50 PM
The cheers that washed down on Mats Sundin were long gone before the final horn went off at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night.

The Toronto Maple Leafs honored their all-time scoring leader by raising a banner honoring his No. 13 to the rafters of the Air Canada Centre before their game against Montreal. By the end of the night, the cheers for Sundin had turned to boos for the current Leafs after the Canadiens spoiled the party with a 5-0 victory.

It was a nightmarish end to a night that began with the Leafs honoring their longtime captain – who urged the crowd during his speech to get behind the team because of the difficulty of playing in Toronto.

“We just didn’t play well,” Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf said. “I don’t think there’s much more than needs to be said. It’s disappointing, with where we’re at in the standings, not to come out and play our best.”

The Leafs’ third straight loss kept them from widening the gap on ninth-place Washington; they still lead the Caps by a point in the race for the last playoff spot in the East. Montreal, which looked dead in the water a week ago, has won four in a row and climbed into 11th place, seven points behind Toronto.

“No matter who we’re playing we have to play this kind of hockey,” Montreal coach Randy Cunneyworth said. “We were rewarded for playing the right way.”

Five different Canadiens scored goals, Tomas Plekanec had a pair of assists and Carey Price stopped 32 shots for his fourth shutout of the season and the 16th of his career. Price also earned his second assist of the season when he started the play that led to Mathieu Darche’s breakaway goal early in the third period.

“Tonight was a big night for Sundin and I was really honored to be a part of that,” Price said. “But I didn’t want to win it any more or any less just because it was a retirement party.”

It was the first shutout by the Canadiens in Toronto since Jose Theodore blanked the Leafs 4-0 on Oct. 11, 2003. Nikolai Kulemin came closest to ending Price’s shutout bid when his blast from the slot with 3:40 remaining hit both posts and rolled up the goaltender’s leg — but stayed out.

“In the end, Carey Price made all the stops and we didn’t get very many,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said after his goaltenders — James Reimer and Jonas Gustavsson — combined for just 13 saves on 18 Montreal shots. “It made for a difficult night.”

Though the Leafs outshot Montreal 14-8 in the first period, there were only a handful of scoring chances as the teams appeared to take a long time to get their legs under them following the ceremonies for Sundin.

That all changed in the second period, when the Canadiens blew the game open with four goals.

Montreal killed an early penalty to Hal Gill, who played a role in the game’s first goal.

Eric Cole was carrying up the right side just as Gill stepped out of the box and briefly joined the rush, backing off the Leafs’ defense before turning to get to the bench. With some extra room, Cole raced into the zone, cut to the middle and fired a stoppable shot that went through the five-hole and past Reimer at 5:01.

“The first goal was probably a stoppable shot,” Wilson said. “(It put us) down to a team that wants to play everybody back and rob you of your speed and the kind of game you want to play. That first goal was critical and we talked about that. It wasn’t a good goal to give up, and bad things happened after that.”

Rene Bourque made it 2-0 at 6:45, blasting a one-timer from the right circle past Reimer after a giveaway by the Leafs in their own zone. Darche picked up the pick and slipped it to Plekanec for a perfect cross-slot pass that Bourque hammered past Reimer.

Montreal then blew the game open with two goals in a three-minute span late in the period.

Max Pacioretty, coming off a hat trick against the Islanders on Thursday, fired a power-play rebound past Reimer at 15:45. It was the first power-play goal allowed by the Leafs in 18 games in 2012; Toronto had killed off 31 consecutive power plays since Winnipeg scored with the extra man on Dec. 31.

The 18-game streak without a power-play goal allowed was two short of the NHL record set by Chicago in 1969-70 – and the longest by the Leafs since 1940-41.

Lars Eller triggered plenty of boos from the home fans with his unassisted goal at 18:45. Eller carried unchecked through the neutral zone, danced around Phaneuf and swept in before cutting past Reimer and dunking the puck into an empty net for his 12th of the season and the Canadiens’ fourth on seven shots in the period.

“We’re just playing like a team,” Montreal defenseman P.K. Subban said. “I think that we’re all on the same page, we’re supporting each other through thick and thin. We have to continue to do that if we’re going to be successful as a team.

“The moment that we start pointing fingers at each other or getting away from the game plan it’s not going to work.”

The Leafs changed goaltenders to start the third period, but it didn’t help – Price made a save and cleared the puck to Plekanec, whose brilliant pass from his own half-boards caught Darche in stride at the Leafs’ blue line just as he split the defense. Darche roared in alone and beat Gustavsson from 15 feet at 1:29 for a five-goal lead.

The rest of the night was dedicated to getting Price his shutout.

“It’s definitely motivating when he’s playing like that,” Pacioretty said, “because you want to win it for him and you want to give him the shutout.”

• Wins: 25
• losses: 28
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 54

. recap.

Flyers edge Maple Leafs 4-3
Thursday, 02.09.2012 / 11:13 PM
Two nights after they were unable to turn scoring chances into goals, the Philadelphia Flyers ‘ top line came through when it mattered.

Claude Giroux and Brayden Schenn scored 74 seconds apart in the second period as the Flyers held off the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 on Thursday night at the Wells Fargo Center, snapping a three-game losing streak.

Scott Hartnell and Max Talbot also had goals for Philadelphia, which outshot the New York Islanders 45-18 on Tuesday but lost 1-0 in a shootout. Philadelphia’s top line of Giroux, Hartnell and Jaromir Jagr combined for four points after going scoreless on 16 shots in the loss to the Isles.

“We were cycling, we had the confidence going and we had some chances,” Hartnell said. “We work well together.”

Tyler Bozak scored two goals and Joffrey Lupul had one for the Leafs, who were 6-2-1 in their previous nine games.

“They were a team that lost three in a row, and they just took it to us in the first.” Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “We coughed up the puck too much. We worked so hard to make it 2-2. We just have to learn from it.”

Sergei Bobrovsky made 24 saves, including a pad stop on Bozak’s rocket during a 4-on-2 rush with five minutes left. Bobrovsky allowed a career-worst six goals in a 6-4 loss to New Jersey last Saturday and wasn’t expecting to play until Ilya Bryzgalov showed up to the morning skate with the flu.

“It doesn’t matter whether it was my fault or not, I didn’t want to allow those goals,” the second-year Russian goaltender said through an interpreter. “It was good to have a chance to redeem myself.”

After Hartnell scored the only goal of a nondescript first period, the teams combined for six goals in the second — three of them in the first six minutes.

Bozak tied it 54 seconds into the period, bouncing a pass off the skate of Philadelphia defenseman Braydon Coburn and into the net. Just 2:38 later, Talbot deflected a slap shot by Andrej Meszaros past James Reimer.

Ex-Flyer Joffrey Lupul scored a power-play goal at 5:57 to tie it at 2-2. Dion Phaneuf’s shot bounced out of Bobrovsky’s glove, and Lupul put it into the net for his 22nd goal.

But Giroux put the Flyers ahead to stay when he beat Reimer with a quick shot into the top right corner after a perfect pass from the side of the net. Schenn made it 4-2 when he scored into a wide-open net after Danny Briere’s shot from the right wing hit Reimer’s right shoulder and ricocheted to the left circle.

Bozak scored his second of the night and 12th of the season, banging home a rebound through traffic with 1:51 left in the period.

But Bobrovsky stopped all 10 shots he faced in the third period.

I blame…. the weather. lol.

• Wins: 25
• losses: 27
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 54

. recap.

Jets end Maple Leafs’ win streak at three
Wednesday, 02.08.2012 / 12:38 AM
WINNIPEG – The MTS Centre is where visiting team’s win streaks go to die and where the Winnipeg Jets continue to fortify their playoff push.

The Eastern Conference playoff race is beginning round into shape as the NHL calendar marches toward April. A 2-1 win for the Winnipeg Jets against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday night at the MTS Centre will allow the Jets to remain a player in that race for the moment, despite a dreadful January skid that bled into February.

“We looked tired coming off a road trip,” Jets coach Claude Noel said. “I didn’t think we gave them a whole ton, but we did some things, and it’s a big win for us.”

After a 2-4-0 road trip in which the Jets (25-24-6) managed only goals over the six games, Winnipeg’s quickly fading playoffs hopes received a boost with the two points against the Leafs (28-20-6), who saw their three-game win streak came to a halt.

The Leafs, on a 5-0-1 roll before meeting the Jets, are the fourth team to see an undefeated streak of five or more games end at the MTS Centre with a loss to the Jets this season and remain stranded where they began the night – stuck at 62 points. With a game at Philadelphia on Thursday, the Leafs are now three points behind New Jersey and Pittsburgh, but just one point ahead of eighth-place Ottawa.

Toronto lost for the second time this season in the MTS Centre, where being back in front of their home crowd continues to serve the Jets well.

“It was nice to get home,” said Jets center Bryan Little, who broke a 1-1 tie in the second period with his game-winning strike. “It feels like we’ve been gone for a long time.”

But the Jets will not be home for long. A two-game Jets road trip begins on Thursday night against the Washington Capitals. Winning the Southeast Division outright might be the Jets’ most direct path to an Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Jets now sit four points behind the Capitals, who wrestled away the Southeast Division lead with a 4-0 win against the visiting Florida Panthers on Tuesday. Ottawa’s loss at home to St. Louis allowed the Jets to creep to within five points of the Senators as well.

“Tomorrow is another day,” winning goaltender Ondrej Pavelec said, “and we go to Washington and Pittsburgh. It’s going to be a battle again.”

Along with a goal from Chris Thorburn and Little’s second-period tally, the Jets limited the Leafs to 13 shots over the opening 40 minutes. Pavelec finished his evening with a 17-save performance that included a stop on Matt Lombardi’s in-close chance with just over four minutes remaining that helped to close out the Leafs.

“All season long we have stayed positive,” Pavelec said of a team that had to return to Winnipeg after a poor performance against the Canadiens. “We know it’s a hard League, never an easy game. We tried to stay positive no matter what.”

Phil Kessel picked up his 30th goal of the season — the fourth straight campaign he’s accomplished that feat — to account for the Leafs’ only goal. Toronto goaltender Jonas Gustavsson made his first start in four games and stopped 27 Winnipeg shots.

The Leafs hung an early deficit on the Jets when Kessel scooted past Winnipeg defenseman Dustin Byfuglien before slicing across the high slot and snapping a heavy shot that fooled Pavelec at 11:06. The Jets have allowed the first goal in six of their last seven games.

But Winnipeg responded with the club’s first first-period goal since Jan. 19 when Zach Bogosian reached Thorburn with a outlet pass that sent the burly winger tearing down the left boards. Thorburn then cut hard past Luke Schenn on his off-wing and backhanded a shot that beat Gustavsson’s glove hand on the far corner. After having gone without a goal over 59 games dating back to March 2011 and not scoring his first goal of the season until last week, Thorburn now has two goals in five games.

“It was nice to see him score again,” Noel said of Thorburn. “He endured enough for the first 50 games, so it’s nice to see him get some success. That line has been really reliable for us and has played well.”|

After the Leafs’ early goal, Thorburn also skated on that Winnipeg checking line with Jim Slater and Tanner Glass that matched the Leafs’ top line featuring Kessel, Joffrey Lupul and Tyler Bozak that combined for just three shots.

“It’s really rewarding as a line,” Thorburn said of scoring and bottling up the Kessel line. “It’s definitely a challenge. Tonight was a case where they scored early on us and as a line we said, ‘We’ve got to do better.’” So, we did that.”

The Leafs’ work inside the offensive zone did not please coach Ron Wilson.

“They did a good job in their zone,” Wilson said of the Jets, “but we didn’t direct enough pucks toward the net. We were trying to make an extra play, an extra pass and things like that. We just didn’t scramble them up enough.”

The Jets hit the two-goal mark in regulation time for the first time since Jan. 21 when Blake Wheeler drove through the left circle to the Toronto net, where Gustavsson poked away the puck. But Little crashed the slot, beat Lombardi to the puck and shoved home the rebound before Gustavsson could scramble back into position.

“(Great) play by Wheeler,” Little said. “He was driving the net wide and, you know, once he uses his speed and size and takes it to the net like that, it’s hard to stop him. For me, all I had to do was go to the net and tap it into the empty net, so it was pretty easy for me.”

smack, again. I smell playoffs?

• Wins: 25
• losses: 26
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 54

. recap.

Leafs beat Oilers for third straight win
Monday, 02.06.2012 / 9:53 PM
TORONTO — Make it three in a row for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Phil Kessel had two goals and an assist as the Leafs extended their winning streak with a 6-3 victory against the Edmonton Oilers at the Air Canada Centre on Monday night.

Toronto has now earned at least a point in six straight contests. For Edmonton, it was its first regulation loss in six games (4-0-1).

The Oilers were without their head coach Tom Renney, who was hit with a puck earlier in the day and required several stitches. Assistant coach Ralph Kreuger ran Edmonton’s bench Monday night.

Tyler Bozak scored what turned out to be the game-winning goal early in the second period. In what seemed like a harmless play, Cam Barker had the puck in his own zone and was looking for an outlet pass, but Bozak was playing Barker close and was able to get enough to steal the puck and flip it over a surprised Devan Dubnyk at 4:15. It was Bozak’s 10th goal of the season.

The goal came two and a half minutes after Kessel gave Toronto a 3-2 lead 1:45 into the second on his 28th tally of the season. Kessel smartly circled behind the Oilers’ net to elude coverage by Ryan-Nugent Hopkins before being set up to the far side of Dubnyk by Matthew Lombardi, whose slight hesitation before making the pass allowed Kessel to get into position. With the goal, Kessel now has 300 total career points. He would later add an empty-net goal.

After Jeff Petry pulled the Oilers within one at 13:24 with his first goal since Nov. 22, Toronto regained a two-goal advantage. Initially thwarted by Dubnyk when trying to finish of a 2-on-1 down low with Mikhail Grabovski, Joffrey Lupul stayed in front of the net. When Dion Phaneuf unleashed a wobbling puck towards the goal, Lupul was able to glove it down and beat Dubnyk for his 21st goal of the season.

If James Reimer had any dreams of three straight games with a shutout, they came to an abrupt end, as Jordan Eberle scored for the Oilers just 21 seconds into the game. Sam Gagner recorded the second assist to continue his torrid pace, as he now has 13 points in his past four games.

Toronto tied the game exactly eight minutes later when MacArthur fired a quick shot to beat Dubnyk for his 17th goal of the season.

Grabovski continued his strong play of late, playing a part in the Leafs’ second goal, which gave them a temporary lead with just over six minutes remaining in the first. He took the puck at the goal line to the right of Reimer and skated down the right wing into Oilers’ zone. After eluding Barker, he circled behind Dubnyk before flipping a short pass to Jake Gardiner, who beat the Oilers’ goaltender to the far side. It was Gardiner’s second goal of the season.

But the Oilers tied it before the intermission, as Eberle finished off a give-and-go with Petry for his second goal of the night at 17:30.

Edmonton rookie Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was forced to leave the game in the third period after aggravating his recent shoulder injury. He will be re-evaluated Tuesday.

They call this one *stomp!*. And Ottawa got stomped on their own turf. Double ow!

• Wins: 24
• losses: 26
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 52

. Recap.

Leafs pummel struggling Senators 5-0
Saturday, 02.04.2012 / 11:26 PM
KANATA, Ont. – Saturday night’s edition of the Battle of Ontario was a tale of two teams heading in different directions.

Phil Kessel and Tyler Bozak each had a goal and two assists, while Luke Schenn, Cody Franson and Dion Phaneuf also scored as the Toronto Maple Leafs continued their recent surge by routing the struggling Ottawa Senators 5-0.

The Leafs (27-19-6), who have won five of their last seven, held onto eighth place in the East — while the Senators (27-21-7) continue to spiral downward; Saturday was their sixth consecutive loss. Scoring continues to be an issue for Ottawa, which has only eight goals in its last six games and hasn’t scored an even strength goal in seven periods.

James Reimer recorded his second consecutive shutout and his third of the season, turning away all 49 shots. Craig Anderson, who made his 17th straight start, finished with 35 saves.

“We did what we needed to a couple of nights ago in Pittsburgh and here again tonight,” Reimer said. “Right from the get-go I thought we played real smart, honest hockey. We didn’t make a lot of mistakes and we were smart with the puck.”

For the Leafs’ goaltender, getting the second half of the back-to-back shutouts was sweet — especially in a rival building.

“It’s nice, and it’s only happened once before in my career, so for it to happen in (Ottawa) it’s always a lot of fun,” Reimer said. “I wish I could take credit for it but the guys just played unbelievable tonight. Ottawa did a really good job of trying to get the puck in front but our d-men just boxed them, so hats off to them. When the guys are going hard and scoring goals, it boosts your morale.”

The Maple Leafs opened the scoring when Jake Gardiner, showing tremendous patience with the puck, dished off to Kessel, who went top-shelf on Anderson at 13:47 to break a personal three-game scoreless streak.

Kessel, who has four goals and five assists against Ottawa this season, insists that there’s no secret to his renewed success.

“I think I’ve had my legs the past few games. I don’t think it’s (playing against Ottawa) – the puck just found the net tonight,” he said.

Toronto made it 2-0 at 17:02 during a power play. With Sergei Gonchar in the box for hooking, Kessel fed the puck to a waiting Phaneuf, who wired a shot from the right faceoff dot past Anderson for his first goal in 11 games.

The Leafs made it 3-0 at 8:25 of the second when Kessel made a gorgeous neutral zone pass to Bozak, who split the defense and beat a sprawling Anderson.

The Leafs poured it on in the third period, when Lupul fed Schenn for his second of the season at 5:39, and added another power-play goal when Franson, Clarke MacArthur and Mikhail Grabovski went back and forth with the puck. Franson regained control and wristed it past Anderson at 12:17.

The Senators had three power plays but couldn’t capitalize on their chances. The Leafs have killed off their last 22 shorthanded situations and have yet to allow a power-play goal in their 14 games in 2012.

Colby Armstrong, naturally pleased with the win, also enjoyed coming into an arena crammed with blue and white jerseys.

“We got great goaltending the entire night and (Reimer) has been awesome for us,” he said. “We had the “go Leafs go” chant going the whole night, and that was pretty cool to come into Ottawa and have half, or more than half of the building be Toronto Maple Leafs fans.”

The Senators, who lost 2-1 in overtime to the New York Islanders at home on Friday, are looking for answers to a slump that is threatening to spoil what’s been a surprisingly good season.

“We lose the special teams battles, our power play doesn’t score, our penalty kill gets scored on … our five-on-five is probably a fairly even game, but you need some support on your power play and stops from your penalty kill,” center Jason Spezza said. “It’s kind of the recipe for what was going on when we were winning games. Now we’re losing games and those are two contributing factors. We didn’t get any puck luck around the net, too.

“There’s ups and downs during the season – right now we’re in a down point, so it’s about how quick we can turn this thing around. There’s a cluster of teams fighting it out (for playoff spots). This is no time to quit or get down on ourselves.”

Lose one, win one. This one was a slow game. Back and forth it goes.

• Wins: 23
• losses: 26
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 50

recap.

Leafs end Penguins’ streak with 1-0 win
Thursday, 02.02.2012 / 12:07 AM
TORONTO — The Toronto Maple Leafs didn’t let the memory of a victory that slipped away 24 hours earlier haunt them on Wednesday night.

Clarke MacArthur’s goal with 6:05 left in regulation gave Toronto a 1-0 victory against Pittsburgh, ending the Penguins’ eight-game winning streak and earning the Leafs a measure of revenge for a painful loss 24 hours earlier.

MacArthur took a quick pass from Mikhail Grabovski, who had drawn two Penguins to him, went around Penguins goaltender Brent Johnson and put backhanded his 16th of the season into the wide-open net. MacArthur now has four goals in his past three games and is edging closer to his second straight 20 goal season.

More important, Toronto moved into seventh place in the East after earning three out of a possible four points against a conference opponent — despite blowing a 4-1 third-period lead in a 5-4 shootout loss at Pittsburgh on Tuesday.

“I thought it was a harder-fought game tonight,” MacArthur said. “It felt like a playoff game. There wasn’t much given up on either side. You know, it was just nice to see our team [stick] with it. It’s easy to get frustrated.

“We stuck with it and got the win.”

The goal came just moments after Pittsburgh’s James Neal tipped Brooks Orpik’s shot off the crossbar — one of three times the Penguins beat James Reimer but caught iron. Reimer, making his first start since Jan. 17, stopped 25 shots for his second shutout of the season. When the final horn blew, he looked to the sky in celebration.

“Honestly, I feel like I have been playing good; just wasn’t getting the bounces,” Reimer said after his first win since Dec. 23. “[The puck] would deflect off guys and in and today they were deflecting off guys and off the post or wide.”

“It was just great to get the breaks and benefit from them. … It was just fun to be in there and to get a little help from our buddy the posts.”

It was Pittsburgh’s first loss since Jan. 11 — though the Penguins felt they played better than they had on Tuesday.

“We were obviously a lot better,” Orpik said. “But we were just saying, it’s funny how we probably didn’t deserve to even be in that game last night and we get two points out of it. Then tonight, we probably deserve better but we come out on the losing end.”

There was no scoring through 40 minutes of the rematch, although early in the second it looked as though the Penguins’ top line had opened the scoring.

Malkin took the puck at the corner boards to the right of Reimer, made a spin move to elude John Michael-Liles and then sent a backhander on net. Initially it looked like Chris Kunitz, who was in the crease being covered by Cody Franson, had the puck go off him and past Reimer. But after video review, it was ruled that Kunitz had directed the puck into the net with a distinct kicking motion and the goal was waived off.

Johnson had not played since Jan. 10 but was solid all night, stopping 23 shots. He stoned Phil Kessel less than 30 seconds into the second period. Later, with Malkin in the box for holding, he stopped Liles’ slap shot and didn’t allow a rebound.

Liles returned to the lineup after an extended absence, he had not played since Dec. 22 due to a concussion and finished the night with three shots and two blocked shots.

Reimer was on his toes when Pittsburgh buzzed around the Leafs zone with 3 1/2 minutes remaining in the period. He stopped Tyler Kennedy’s shot from in close though being screened by his own defenseman, then smothered the rebound as Kennedy crashed the net. Nine seconds later, Kris Letang was set up for a shot after a good cross-ice pass, but Reimer was equal to the task again.

Pens coach Dan Bylsma thought that his team didn’t get enough shots on Reimer.

“We couldn’t find a goal out there and we didn’t get enough pucks on the net early on in that game when we had opportunities to get scoring chances and goals,” he said. “It’s a tight game and they end up getting one late.”

Both goalies, who had not seen action in a long time, could consider the opening period a success.

Reimer was welcomed into the game with a Kennedy shot that hit iron; later in the period, Matt Niskanen’s point shot also rang off the post. His toughest test came on a shorthanded break by Matt Cooke, who attempted to beat Reimer with a high short-side backhand attempt but was turned away.

At the other end of the ice, Johnson made several nice saves, including two right pad saves against Brown, but his best save came late in the period when he robbed Joey Crabb who was set up with a point-blank chance.

“It helped that I got a few shots at the start was able to play the puck a bit and got into a bit of a groove with that,” Johnson said.

“I felt all right, obviously disappointed in the loss, it’s definitely a step in the right direction for myself,” Johnson said. “Our guys played well; one little chance for them and they made good.”

Come back after the allstar break and…. lose? At least we tried and it was a shootout loss? small miracles, maybe? lol.

• Wins: 22
• losses: 26
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 3
• points: 48

Recap.

Pens rally, beat Leafs in shootout
Tuesday, 01.31.2012 / 11:42 PM
PITTSBURGH — There’s no stopping Evgeni Malkin these days – even if it takes him more than 59½ minutes to get going.

Malkin scored the tying goal on a deflection with 6.6 seconds remaining in regulation, then was the only skater to find the net in a three-round shootout as the Pittsburgh Penguins surged back from a three-goal deficit to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 at Consol Energy Center on Tuesday night.

“Everybody was not playing the right way tonight,” Penguins defenseman’ Kris Letang said. “I don’t think our team gave a solid effort but, at the end of the day, we had guys that had big goals and big plays at the end of the game.”

The Penguins have won a season-best eight in a row, with the last two and four of six decided in shootouts. Malkin and Chris Kunitz scored in a shootout as the Penguins won 3-2 at St. Louis on Jan. 24 in their final game before the All-Star break.

Malkin, the NHL scoring leader with 59 points, has 10 goals and four assists during Pittsburgh’s longest winning streak since it won 12 in a row last season.

During a night that couldn’t have started much worse or ended much better for him, Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury surrendered two goals to Mikhail Grabovski as Pittsburgh fell behind 4-1, but bounced back to make 35 saves. Fleury then turned aside Grabovski, Nazem Kadri and Phil Kessel during the shootout.

“I haven’t looked at the numbers across the League, but I feel he’s the best (goalie) to have in there during a shootout,” Penguins coach Dan Bylsma said.

The Penguins are 7-2 in shootouts to Toronto’s 3-3.

Fleury made a succession of acrobatic saves despite yielding the four goals during his 23rd consecutive appearance; he has not had a night off since Dec. 3. Penguins forward Joe Vitale said that if it hadn’t been for Fleury, “It could have been 8-0, easily.”

“He was the best player on the ice,” Toronto forward Joffrey Lupul said. “He made huge saves.”

Still, the save of the night was made just ahead of Pittsburgh’s comeback by Letang, the All-Star defenseman who stretched out full length with his stick to block Tyler Bozak’s shot toward an unguarded net. Fleury had abandoned the net to stop Bozak’s breakaway attempt.

“I knew the guy didn’t have a lot of time to put it in the air, so I just tried to put my body on the ice and my stick, and I think he just didn’t get a lot of it,” Letang said.

The Penguins responded with a three-goal flurry in which Steve Sullivan, Vitale and Malkin scored in less than 12 minutes.

The encouraging news the Penguins received about superstar Sidney Crosby earlier in the night – he has a treatable neck injury that may have mimicked a concussion – didn’t initially create much of a momentum surge.

“But when you win eight in a row, you’re dealing with a pretty confident group, and I think confidence comes when you’re down 1-0 or 2-0 or even 4-1 in the third,” Vitale said.

Malkin emerged from the week-long All-Star break with nine goals in seven games, only to be initially upstaged by Grabovski, who had a goal and four assists in two games last week.

Grabovski, the NHL’s First Star last week, scored the game’s first two goals slightly more than three minutes apart in the second period and now has seven points in his last two games.

After Matt Cooke scored for the first time in 20 games for Pittsburgh, the Maple Leafs appeared to have sealed their third successive win when Bozak and Clarke MacArthur scored 19 seconds apart early in the third period, making it 4-1. Bozak hadn’t scored since Dec. 19 before netting a power-play goal.

But was it over? Not yet.

Sullivan and Vitale made it 4-3 before Malkin’s tying goal – his 27th — came with an extra attacker on the ice and the Penguins pressing in the closing seconds. James Neal’s shot from the right circle deflected off Malkin’s chest at the edge of the crease – Malkin wasn’t even looking to make a play – and past a surprised Jonas Gustavsson, who was visibly angry at surrendering a goal with victory so near.

“We got sloppy toward the end,” Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “Even with the empty net situation, all we had to do was chip it off the boards and the game was over, and we didn’t do that.”

Malkin’s goal was upheld on video review as the Penguins won their fourth in a row at home, all after regulation. The longtime Maple Leafs antagonist has nine goals and 27 assists in 18 games against them.

The teams meet in the second game of their home-and-home series Wednesday night at the Air Canada Centre.

“We’re not happy with this,” Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf said. “It’s unacceptable to have that lead and lose that hockey game. … We took the game to them for the first 55 minutes, but after that we sat back and tightened up and they took over the game. They broke us.”

Toronto also had an apparent goal by Bozak waved off for goaltender interference in the first period. Lupul disputed the call.

“In hindsight, it was an important goal to be waved off,” Wilson said.

last game pre allstar break!

• Wins: 22
• losses: 25
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout
  losses: 2
• points: 47

recap.

Tavares’ streak ends as Leafs blank Isles
Monday, 01.23.2012 / 11:31 PM
TORONTO — All good things must come to an end.

Such was the case for John Tavares on Monday night, as the All-Star’s 12-game point streak came to an end in the New York Islanders’ 3-0 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Centre.

With family and friends in the stands, Tavares was unable to extend his League-leading point streak, which saw him tally 21 points (8 goals, 13 assists) along the way. He’ll attempt to begin a new streak Tuesday night, when these teams will meet again in New York.

“Really it doesn’t matter a whole lot … what I try to do is contribute offensively and we didn’t get the win tonight, so that’s what matters the most and what I’m most worried about,” Tavares said. “It’s over. I’ll just move on and get ready to play tomorrow.”

Matthew Lombardi scored twice for the Maple Leafs, while Jonas Gustavsson stopped all 25 shots he faced to earn the shutout.

Gustavsson now has three shutouts this season and is just one win away from tying his career high of 16, which he achieved in his first season with the Leafs in 2009-10.

“I didn’t see a lot of shots in the first two periods,” Gustavsson said. “(We worked really hard), especially on the back-check. We didn’t get those odd man rushes that they wanted. The guys helped me a lot. I saw all the shots, and if not, they blocked it and got the puck out of our zone.”

While he may not have been that busy through two periods (New York mustered only 11 shots through the first 40 minutes), Gustavsson was certainly cognoscente of Tavares’ presence.

“Every time he has the puck, you gotta be ready for anything,” Gustavsson said. “He’s such a good passer, too. He can really make plays, so you gotta turn your head, be sharp and be ready to push wherever he is gonna put the puck. Of course, you look for him out there.”

Toronto held on to a slim 1-0 lead for most of the game after scoring early in the first until Phil Kessel netted the insurance marker at 8:10 of the third period to give the Leafs some breathing room.

While Kessel may have scored the goal, it was Joffrey Lupul who demonstrated why he may be the Leafs’ Most Valuable Player this season. After he put a scoring opportunity just wide, the Islanders turned the puck the other way and entered the Leafs’ zone on an odd man rush. Lupul was initially out of the play, but raced the length of the ice to back check. When the Isles deflected their opportunity just wide, Lupul picked up the puck and charged back out from his own end, through the neutral zone and gained Islanders’ blue line. He then fired a shot that was denied by Evgeni Nabokov, but the rebound went out to his right, straight to Kessel, who was there to collect the rebound. He banged home his 26th goal of the season to make it 2-0.

In a lackluster second period, Toronto outshot New York by an 8-6 margin. The Islanders’ top line of Tavares, Matt Moulson and Kyle Okposo caused some havoc for the Leafs in their own zone, especially during a shift with just under five minutes remaining.

However, Tavares felt his club could have done more to put pressure on Toronto.

“The things we tried weren’t working,” Tavares said. “We didn’t really get many opportunities until the third and even then, we couldn’t really find a way to get some good quality chances. We didn’t execute the way we wanted to and it was really tough for us to try to get back in the game and gain some momentum. Obviously, we didn’t do enough to even draw a penalty.”

Lombardi opened the scoring at 1:37 of the opening period. After receiving a quick pass from Jake Gardiner just inside the Isles’ blue line, Lombardi’s shot caromed off the traffic in front and past Nabokov. Initially the goal was credited to Nazem Kadri, who was behind the Islanders’ goalie and seemed to have gotten his stick on the puck. Lombardi now has 3 goals in his past two games.

“Naz and T.C. (Tim Connolly) drove the net … I guess it went off their guy and in the net,” Lombardi said. “We got some bounces that way. They’re not always going to be pretty ones. We know that. We’ve got to fight for everything — especially this time of year.”

The NHL’s third star of the past week, Nabokov faced 35 shots and was at his busiest in the first. He was especially sharp when PA Parenteau went to the box for tripping Kessel at 13:26. The Leafs fired six shots on net with the man advantage and Nabokov was equal to the task each time against Toronto’s fifth-ranked power play.

That pattern I spoke of previously? out the window.

• Wins: 21
• losses: 25
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout
  losses: 2
• points: 45

Recap.

Canadiens score twice in third to beat Leafs 3-1
Sunday, 01.22.2012 / 12:20 AM
TORONTO — Randy Cunneyworth’s hunch paid off.

Cunneyworth had scratched rookie defenseman Raphael Diaz in Pittsburgh on Friday night, but opted to dress him and sit Yannick Weber instead in Toronto. Diaz rewarded his coach by scoring the go-ahead goal early in the third period as the Montreal Canadiens beat the Leafs 3-1 at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday.

Diaz broke a 1-1 tie at 3:29 by capitalizing on a Joffrey Lupul turnover and firing a shot from the half boards through a screen and past Jonas Gustavsson for his third goal.

“I found out that I’d play before the game, the coach said that I would play” said the Swiss rookie, who had gone eight games without a point and six weeks without a goal. “When can score, you always feel good.

Even better for Diaz and the Habs was getting three of a possible four points this weekend.

“We had a successful weekend with three huge points. As a player, you want to play every game but right now it’s important that we win the points,” Diaz said.

Needless to say, Cunneyworth was pleased with the youngster’s reaction to being scratched the night before.

“He’s played so well, he has been one of our more steady defenseman for most of the year, he is really gradually become a better player, and a player at this level that can handle almost anything.” Cunneyworth said of Diaz who got 17:53 of ice time.

It was also a sour note for Lupul on a day that started well for the Leafs forward. Earlier he was named an assistant captain on Team Chara at the 2012 All-Star Game in Ottawa.

Montreal killed off a tripping penalty to Hal Gill before Lars Eller added an insurance goal at 11:25 by driving behind the Toronto net, fighting off Cody Franson and scoring on a second effort after his initial wraparound did not make it to the net. It was Eller’s 10th of the season and his second in two nights.

“I came on the left side and Franson actually had body position on me and first outmuscled me, so I held back a bit and went around him, outsmarted him a little bit,” Eller said. “You see a white jersey in front and you just throw it at the net and it bounced right back to me. Those are the ones you need.”

Prior to Diaz’s goal, there was a lengthy delay as the glass behind Carey Price had to be replaced. Leafs coach Ron Wilson felt his squad got out of sync at that point and never fully recovered.

“It was almost like that delay kind of half put us asleep, I thought we’d started the period pretty well, there had to be a 10-minute delay, it was like the next shift we ended up getting scored on.” he said.

“We lost a battle on the boards and the defenseman screened the goalie, he didn’t have a chance on the shot. The last one (Eller’s goal), we lost a battle behind the net, we let him go and he eventually put it in and we were more worried it seemed about, I think it was Travis Moen pushed Jake Gardiner into the goalie, but that was irrelevant, we stopped playing for a second and they took advantage of it”

Carey Price made 32 saves for the Canadiens (18-21-9), who with their performance on Friday and Saturday night, kept their flickering playoff hopes alive and moved within seven points of eighth-place Washington in the East. The ninth-place Leafs (23-19-5), who got 20 saves from Gustavsson, have dropped four of their last five and are one point out of eighth place.

After more than 18 minutes of scoreless hockey, the teams traded goals 29 seconds apart late in the first period.

The Habs got on the board at 18:26 when Rene Bourque took advantage of a fortuitous bounce to score his first goal since being acquired by Montreal last week. The play was started when the Canadiens entered the Toronto zone with speed, Erik Cole sent a pass to Tomas Plekanec whose shot went above the crossbar and off the glass but bounded back over the net where Bourque was in perfect position to bang in his 14th of the season.

But the Maple Leafs tied it at 18:55 when Matthew Lombardi scored on a breakaway, beating Price on a forehand deke before going high for his fourth of the season. He was sprung on a lovely high arching flip pass by Tyler Bozak from the near boards just over the Leafs blue line. It was Bozak’s first point of the new year.

Both teams had excellent chances in the second period. Price came up big early on, keeping his left pad on the goal line as Nazem Kadri tried to drive home a Lupul rebound. When Clarke MacArthur corralled the puck just outside of the crease and tried to outwait Price on his forehand, he waited in vain as Price gave him nothing to shoot at.

In the final three minutes of the period, Price turned away Franson’s point shot and then stopped Joey Crabb’s low shot on a shorthanded rush.

Gustavsson made big stops on Max Pacioretty and Chris Campoli during a power play late in the period to keep the score even at 1-1 after 40 minutes.

Having the game knotted at one may have been a small victory in itself for the Canadiens — Montreal was playing its third game in four nights but kept hanging around until breaking through in the third period.

“I felt like we were the better team in the first 10 minutes,” Gustavsson said. “I think we had 10 shots before they had one, if we had another goal there, it would be a (different) game.”

Maple Leafs great Borje Salming was in attendance and drew a rousing ovation during a TV timeout during which a highlight reel of the pioneering defenseman’s career was featured on the video board.

Toronto has a day off before beginning a home-and-home series against Toronto-area native John Tavares and the New York Islanders on Monday. The Canadiens are off until they host Detroit on Wednesday in the final game on the NHL schedule before the All-Star break.

Their’s a pattern here. Can anyone see it? anyone?

• Wins: 21
• losses: 24
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout
  losses: 2
• points: 45

recap.

Leafs whip reeling Wild 4-1
Thursday, 01.19.2012 / 11:49 PM
TORONTO — For the second straight game, the Toronto Maple Leafs jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on home ice. This time they didn’t let it slip away.

Joffrey Lupul had three assists and Phil Kessel scored his 25th goal of the season as the Leafs ended their three-game losing streak by beating the struggling Minnesota Wild 4-1.

With the win, Toronto climbed to within a point of the Florida Panthers for the final playoff position in the Eastern Conference. Minnesota’s 11th straight road loss leaves the Wild a point out of the top eight in the West after losing for the 15th time in 17 games. Minnesota, which led the League with 45 points on Dec. 17, has dropped out of the top eight in less than five weeks.

The Leafs led 2-0 on Tuesday before surrendering three unanswered goals to the Ottawa Senators in a 3-2 loss. This time, they turned in a 60-minute effort, overwhelming the Wild with speed and skill in a one-sided affair.

“We came out strong at the start of the second and kept pushing,” coach Ron Wilson said of his squad, which outshot the Wild 33-21. “Whereas the other night with Ottawa we didn’t bury ‘em when we should have, tonight we did.”

Captain Dion Phaneuf saw the win as an encouraging sign on the heels of Tuesday’s loss.

“We talked about it in between periods; we let a team up when we had them where we wanted them,” Phaneuf said. “We’re learning from our losses and taking things from our wins.”

Jonas Gustavsson, who had to face only 21 shots get the victory, praised the team’s strong defensive effort.

“They boxed out, helped me with rebounds, blocked shots,” said Gustavsson, who has won five of his last seven games. “We backchecked really hard, so it made it tough for them to get 2-on-1s.”

Wilson’s much-publicized line shuffle that separated Kessel and Lupul paid off, as did having six power-play opportunities against the faltering Wild.

Lupul, part of a revamped trio that included Nazem Kadri and Tim Connolly, downplayed impact of the line changes.

“Nothing’s written in stone, the lines could switch back in a couple games or we could keep rolling with these,” Lupul said. “It doesn’t really matter. We just want to play a solid team game and today we played one of our best team games, we didn’t give them any chances, and when we did Monster (Gustavsson) was there.” Lupul said.

Kadri opened the scoring 50 seconds into the game with his fourth of the season. Lupul created the play by stickhandling out of the corner and firing from the slot. His shot was deflected high in the air; it came down in front of the net where Kadri spun and backhanded the falling puck past Niklas Backstrom.

Joey Crabb put the Leafs up 2-0 five minutes later with a stellar individual effort. Crabb sped past Jared Spurgeon wide on the rush, cut to the net and beat Backstrom on the forehand. The puck slid out the back of the goal that had been pushed up by a falling Wild player, so it was only after a video review that Crabb’s eighth of the season was confirmed.

Gustavsson then made a handful of key stops as the period wound down, preventing the type of late score that swung the momentum in favor of the Senators two nights earlier.

After a penalty-free first period, a parade of Wild penalties in the second allowed the Leafs to extend their lead to 3-0. Minnesota took six minors, while Toronto was whistled for just two. Only Backstrom kept the Leafs from blowing the game wide open.

While Kessel skated with Tyler Bozak and Matthew Lombardi at even strength, he renewed his partnership with Lupul on the power play. Kessel was denied by a huge Backstrom glove save during a 5-on-3, but shortly after Clayton Stoner returned to the ice following his high-sticking penalty, Kessel broke through. He scored off a scramble at 15:48 after Lupul swept the puck into the slot — Toronto’s first power-play goal in four games.

Lupul’s third assist came 47 seconds into the third period when his centering pass redirected off the skate of Mikhail Grabovski and into the net for Grabovski’s 15th of the season.

Nick Johnson squeezed one past Gustavsson to spoil the shutout with 2:27 remaining in the game, but the Wild’s offensive output of one goal and 21 shots was nowhere near enough.

“I’ve been coaching for quite a while and been a part of a lot of games I didn’t like,” coach Mike Yeo said. “And this one ranks right up there.”

With captain Mikko Koivu among several top players out of the lineup with injuries, the Wild are a frustrated group, having scored just 14 goals while losing seven times in eight games.

“We can’t wait for anyone to come and save the day,” defenseman Nick Schultz said. “It’s got to be us in here, it’s got to come out of this group, and right now it’s not good enough.”

The Wild look nothing like the team that was riding high a few weeks ago.

“The things that we’re doing now are not helping us get confidence, whether it’s taking unnecessary penalties or the way we’re executing our system, we’re not helping ourselves,” Yeo said. “The biggest thing we need right now is for all of us to take a really hard look at ourselves and figure out what we can do better, what more can we bring to the table. I know I’m ready to come back to the rink and be better and we need the same from everybody.”

As I predicted, 4 wins in a row, 4 losses in arow.

• Wins: 20
• losses: 24
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout
  losses: 2
• points: 43

Recap

Senators rally to beat Maple Leafs 3-2
Wednesday, 01.18.2012 / 2:02 AM
TORONTO — Craig Anderson gave the Ottawa Senators a chance to win. Kyle Turris made sure they did.

Anderson made 37 saves and Turris scored the game-winning goal early in the third period as the Ottawa Senators overcame an early two-goal deficit to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 at Air Canada Centre Tuesday night.

With the win, their ninth in 11 games, the surging Senators have 58 points — just one behind Boston for first place in the Northeast Division, though the Bruins have five games in hand.

The Leafs lost their third game in a row and remained ninth in the East, one point behind eighth-place Washington.

After spotting the Leafs an early 2-0 lead, Daniel Alfredsson scored with 7.5 seconds left in the first, and Jason Spezza tied it late in the second to set the stage for Turris’ big goal. Turris snapped a high wrister short side past James Reimer for at 1:24 of the final period for his third goal since being acquired in a trade with Phoenix on Dec. 17.

While his production has been steady rather than spectacular –11 points in 15 games — Turris has filled the second-line center role that had been a weak spot prior to his arrival.

“I feel like I’m getting more and more comfortable,” said Turris, the third player chosen in the 2007 NHL Draft. “I can’t thank the guys in the room and the coaching staff enough for the confidence they’ve shown in me to come in and play my game. It makes a world of difference to have that much confidence to just play and not have to worry about anything.”

The Senators are 11-2-2 since Turris joined the team, but the 22-year old refuses to take any credit for the turnaround.

“I’ve got nothing to do with that,” Turris said. “I think Craig Anderson does and (Spezza) does. We’re just having fun as a team, working hard, it’s a great atmosphere here and we’re doing everything we can to keep it going.”

Anderson, making his 10th straight start, stifled the Leafs at every turn in the final two periods, when he stopped all 29 shots he faced to give his chance a team to rally after falling behind by two goals. Anderson, who has a 1.85 goals-against average and a .944 save percentage in those 10 games, credited his teammates for the comeback.

“Our leaders stepped up,” Anderson said. “(Alfredsson) with a big goal at the end of the first, (Spezza) stepping up. Just individuals stepping up when the time calls and just doing the things that they need to do.”

Despite outshooting the Senators 39-21, the Maple Leafs were left to ponder a third straight loss. Tyler Bozak, who returned to center the top line after missing seven games with a shoulder injury, expressed his team’s frustration with the result.

“We had our chances, that’s for sure, their goaltender played a great game,” Bozak said, “When they got their opportunities they buried them. They got a few bounces. We can’t really do anything about that. We’re just going to have to keep working hard and hopefully we’re on the scoring end of the sheet next game.”

Coach Ron Wilson felt his squad played well enough to win.

“We did a lot of things that we needed to do to create offense,” Wilson said. “We hit the post a couple times, missed an empty net. They hung around long enough and scored, that’s not a goal you want to give up early in the third. All they did was build a wall and frustrate us for the rest of the third.”

While Anderson was kept extremely busy in the Ottawa net, Reimer faced only 21 shots and gave up three goals, two of which he disputed.

“I felt that on the first two goals I was interfered with and I didn’t have a chance to make the save,” said Reimer, who was playing his first game since Dec. 31. “That was the frustrating part.”

Matthew Lombardi opened the scoring at 6:51 of the first period, scoring his third of the season on the Leafs’ first shot of the game. His wrister from the left wing made a slight deflection off defenseman Chris Phillips and went through the five-hole of the screened goaltender.

The Leafs top line broke out of its three-game scoring drought to double Toronto’s lead at 15:35. Phil Kessel picked Jared Cowen’s pocket at the Leafs blue line and broke in on a long 2-on-1, holding the puck to draw Anderson and then setting up Joffrey Lupul for a one-timer into a wide-open net, Lupul’s 20th goal of the season.

Alfredsson brought the Senators within one just before the final buzzer. With the Senators swarming and a delayed penalty called on the Leafs, Alfredsson beat Reimer up high with a slick backhand from the slot off a nice passout from Milan Michalek for his 15th goal.

The Leafs continued to carry the play in the second period, outshooting the Senators 21-9, but were unable to beat Anderson.

The game heated up physically in the second. Nick Foligno took a clipping penalty for going low on Dion Phaneuf; later in the period, the two engaged in a spirited fight.

But Ottawa scored the only goal at 16:46, a play upheld after video review. In the midst of a goalmouth scramble, Kaspars Daugavins directed the puck towards the goal with his skate and Spezza got the last touch on it to put it the open net behind Reimer for his 20th goal of the season.

Both teams get back into action Thursday; the Leafs will host the Minnesota Wild while the Senators six-game road trip continues in San Jose against the Sharks.

What are we doing, heading for 4 in a row, after that 4 game winning streak? buh.

• Wins: 20
• losses: 23
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout
  losses: 2
• points: 43

Recap.

Rangers dominate Leafs in 3-0 victory
Sunday, 01.15.2012 / 12:15 AM
TORONTO — Two nights after John Tortorella voiced his displeasure with his team’s play in a loss to Ottawa, the New York Rangers played the way their coach said they’re supposed to play every night.

Martin Biron stopped 20 shots and added an assist as the Rangers dominated the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 3-0 victory on Canadian Forces Appreciation Night at Air Canada Centre on Saturday.

Tortorella laced into his team following a 3-0 home loss to Ottawa on Thursday, and his message must have gotten through. The Rangers outshot the Leafs 30-20, outchanced and outhit them, and generally played the way you’d expect the team on top of the NHL’s overall standings to play — that’s what the Blueshirts are after the win moved them past Vancouver into the top spot.

“We talked about it immediately after the (Ottawa) game, and in two or three other meetings before this game – about playing the way we’re supposed to play…”
Tortorella said. “(Being physical) It’s a big part of our game, that’s the way we have to play, we are not a talented enough, we are not a good enough team if we don’t play the way we’re supposed to play … it’s our responsibility to continue to play that way.”

Biron improved to 9-2-0 with his second shutout of the season in his first appearance since Jan. 5. The Leafs’ Tim Connolly thought he might have squeaked one by Biron during a power play early in the third period and his team trailing 2-0, but after a video review, it was deemed the puck had not crossed the goal line.

“I was hugging the post and trying to seal the knees, I know Timmy, I’ve played with him for many years, and I know he is pretty tricky — his backhand especially,” Biron said of his former teammate in Buffalo. “It trickled through my knees, it was close but in a game like this, it was 2-0 at the time, it was a big play for us.”

Later in the period, Biron turned away Clarke MacArthur and then denied Mikhail Grabovski on a point-blank rebound opportunity.

But those opportunities were few and far between — the Rangers were clearly the better team throughout the course of the evening.

New York opened the scoring early in the second period with the kind of goal you would expect from a League leader — the Rangers jumped on a neutral zone turnover and made the Leafs pay. Wojtek Wolski, Derek Stepan and Michael Rupp raced into the Toronto zone on an odd-man rush, with Rupp finishing off a series of tic-tac-toe passes by beating Jonas Gustavsson at 3:35. It was Rupp’s fourth of the season and first since he scored two goals against the Flyers at the Winter Classic in Philadelphia.

The assist was the first point since Oct. 29 for Wolski, who returned to the lineup this week after missing two months due to injury — he was in the lineup because Brandon Dubinsky missed his second game with a shoulder injury.

Brian Boyle made it 2-0 at 16:28 with a seeing-eye shot that beat Gustavsson through traffic. It was Boyle’s third goal of the season. Brandon Prust drew the primary assist.

Gustavsson kept the Leafs in the game late in the period when he kicked out his right pad to deny a deflection off Michael Del Zotto’s point shot.

“Playing back to back, you gotta fight, you gotta step up and especially as a goalie, be ready for anything. I think we tried to play as simple as we could.” said Gustavsson who stopped 27 shots in the second of back to back starts — he was in goal for Friday’s 3-2 loss at Buffalo.

“This is one of those games, you probably need to get the first goal to get the momentum. … They got the first one and then they played a pretty solid game; they made it tough for us.”

Meanwhile, the Rangers made life easy on their goaltender through 40 minutes, limiting the Leafs to just 12 shots.

“We’ve played that way as of late,” Biron said of his team’s stifling defensive effort. “We haven’t been giving up a lot and teams like Toronto that don’t like to shoot a lot from the outside, they like to make plays, it becomes hard for them.”

“The first period, there was no shots for the longest time, it was that kind of game. Torts wanted us to play really tight defensively and I think we did that and it was the key for us”

Stepan’s goal 6:01 into the third period removed any doubt about the outcome and Biron had a big part in setting up the scoring play — he came out of the crease and fired the puck off the left boards to Carl Hagelin in the neutral zone. Hagelin crossed the Toronto blue line and feathered a pass to Stepan, coming late, and the second-year center beat Gustavsson with a nice forehand deke for his 10th of the season. With the goal, Stepan earned his first multi-point performance of 2012 and finished the night with first star honors with a goal and an assist.

From the early stages of the first period it was becoming apparent that the Rangers’ game plan was twofold: Stop the Leafs from using their speed by utilizing an aggressive forecheck and hit their key players at every opportunity.

A little over five minutes into the game, two Rangers converged on Joffrey Lupul as he tried to play the puck behind his own net, Boyle then hammered linemate Phil Kessel as he received the pass. Del Zotto also nailed Boyce was nailed as he was skating off after a shift.

Lupul and Kessel each finished with a minus-2 rating; neither registered a shot on goal.

“We were just, it seemed all night, about half a foot behind,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “We needed our speed in order to compete with them. They didn’t allow us to get some speed in some situations.

Although the first period ended scoreless, the Rangers had set the tone, being credited with 27 hits to eight for Toronto — the final margin was closer, at 48-39.

“We didn’t bring the body like we wanted to last game. We wanted to do that tonight; we knew that they played last night,” said center Brad Richards who won 13 of 21 faceoffs. “If we come out and move our legs and hit or get hit early, we knew we’d have a chance to wear them down.”

On Sunday the Rangers will complete a stretch of three games in four nights with a visit to Montreal. Toronto, which began a five-game homestand, is off until Ottawa comes to the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday.

Coming off a 4 win winning streak, This one was expected after Tuesday’s win over the same team.

• Wins: 20
• losses: 22
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout
  losses: 2
• points: 43

Recap.

Sabres snap slide by edging Leafs 3-2
Saturday, 01.14.2012 / 12:08 AM
With a seven-game road trip staring them in the face, Friday night’s visit from the Toronto Maple Leafs was a must-win game as the struggling Buffalo Sabres — and they won it, though not easily.

Buffalo blew an early two-goal lead, but Jason Pominville put the Sabres ahead to stay with 5:47 left in the second period and they held off the Leafs 3-2 at First Niagara Center.

The Sabres (19-19-5) entered the night 11th in the East — and even with the win they remained five points behind Washington for the final playoff berth. But with their next seven games on the road, they knew this was a win they had to have.

“It wasn’t our best game, so it was nice to be able to get that one,” Pominville said. “It was fun to see guys keep their composure. We’re not going through the stretch we would want, but we were playing well.”

Matt Ellis and Paul Gaustad had first-period goals for the Sabres, who snapped a three-game slide and won for just the third time in seven games (3-7-2). Ryan Miller stopped 24 shots as the Sabres earned a split of a home-and-home series after losing 2-0 in Toronto on Tuesday.

The win came hours after owner Terry Pegula reaffirmed his faith in the team. The first-year owner blamed the Sabres’ struggles on a rash of injuries, and expressed confidence his team is not far from bouncing back.

“It’s nice of him to put that belief in us,” Miller said. “We’ve got a lot more work to pay him back.”

Mikhail Grabovski and Joey Crabb had first-period goals for the Leafs, who had won four in a row and missed a chance to get to eight games over .500 for the first time since ending 2006-07 with a 40-31-11 mark. They are 1-8-1 in their last 10 visits to Buffalo.

Pominville’s goal came on a slick play from Thomas, who chased down a loose puck at the right boards and drove towards the net before flipping a pass through the crease past two defenders and onto Pominville’s stick for the putaway.

“I knew the whole time he was going to make the play,” he said. “It just landed right on my stick. I just had to settle it down and put it away. It was one of those plays not many guys can make.”

The goal was the captain’s 15th of the season. Pominville and Vanek — Buffalo’s only consistent offensive player — have combined to score 12 of the Sabres’ 34 goals in the last 16 games.

“That’s why they’re staying together,” coach Lindy Ruff said. “They know where each other are going to be most of the time. They look for those types of plays.”

The Sabres got off to a quick start, scoring twice in less than four minutes. Ellis’ backhand centering pass from behind the net hit the skate of defenseman Cody Franson and slipped past Jonas Gustavsson 1:05 after the opening faceoff. Gaustad scored at 3:53 with a snap shot from the right circle that went through the legs of defenseman Carl Gunnarsson, hit Gustavsson and fell into the net.

“A couple of bad bounces early put us behind the eight-ball,” Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf said. “We fought, we just didn’t have enough to even it up in the third.”

The Maple Leafs tied in on goals 2:46 apart. Grabovski picked up a rocket-like carom off the end boards after Like Schenn missed the net and one-timed it past Miller at 14:06. Crabb took a pass from Grabovski and ripped it past Miller from the slot at 16:52 following a turnover by defenseman Mike Weber, who fell down on the play.

Miller made two key stops in the final nine minutes, including a right pad stop on Franson’s shot from the right circle. The Leafs also hit two posts in a 22-second span in the middle period

“We didn’t have much puck luck,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “We didn’t get enough shots from the middle of the rink to scramble them up. And that’s something that let us down. But all in all, I thought we played well.”

4 in a row! hot damn!

• Wins: 20
• losses: 21
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout
  losses: 2
• points: 43

Recap.

Leafs blank Sabres for fourth straight win
Tuesday, 01.10.2012 / 11:47 PM
TORONTO — The good times continue to roll for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Nikolai Kulemin and Mikhail Grabovksi had a goal apiece and Jonas Gustavsson stopped all 32 shots he faced as the Maple Leafs defeated the Buffalo Sabres 2-0 on Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre, finishing a perfect homestand with their fourth straight win.

Gustavsson posted his fourth straight win and second shutout in three games.

“I feel good out there,” said Gustavsson, who has a .950 save percentage during the win streak. “There’s so little (difference) between winning and losing and letting three or four goals or having a shutout, you’ve really got to be on your toes and keep pushing yourself. You can’t relax just because you had a good run.”

“He’s handling pucks, he’s confident,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “He’s making key saves when we need them. He’s playing really well.”

Secondary scoring keyed the win for Toronto. The dynamic duo of Phil Kessel and Joffrey Lupul, who have combined for 95 points this season, did not hit the scoresheet. Instead, it was the second line of Kulemin, Grabovski and Joey Crabb that did the damage.

Kulemin opened the scoring on the power play, making a nice spin move to pull the puck to his forehand and beat Ryan Miller at 8:22 of the first period. Kulemin then made a slick pass to Grabovski, who broke in and went backhand high glove on Miller to give the Leafs a 2-0 first-period lead, providing all the offense they would need.

Kulemin’s goal was just his fifth of the season, well below expectations for a player who scored 30 last season, but he showed signs Tuesday of exiting his season-long funk. In addition to notching his second multi-point game of the year, he stepped up physically with a big open ice hit on Patrick Kaleta in the third period.
Wilson likes what he has seen from Kulemin lately.

“All around he’s been getting the job done,” Wilson said of the 25-year old forward. “Killing penalties, blocked shots, gets pucks out, forechecks hard. … (Tonight he) buried a power-play opportunity, made a nice play on the Grabovski goal and that big hit on Kaleta to crown the whole night for him.”

Grabovski meanwhile, is quietly heating up at the right time, with 3 goals and 5 points on the current homestand.

More good news for the Leafs came on special teams as they notched a power-play goal and did not take a single non-offsetting minor penalty, maintaining a perfect penalty-killing record on the homestand, having only had to kill off two in the last three games.

“It’s also led to us being pretty good defensively,” Wilson said. “We’ve got our sticks down, playing defense the way you should, and we’re building on it. Before the game you mention some of these things, and during the game the guys are doing all the talking, which is a real positive. They start to feel the momentum that this stuff works and they’re feeling confident with it.”

Sabres coach Lindy Ruff had a different take on the fact that his team received no power plays, and that Kaleta had been penalized for a hit on Grabovski in the third period.

“That was tough to figure out. They had one player who carried the puck a good two strides (Kulemin), they had (Nazem) Kadri who hit our player (Jordan) Leopold in the same fashion (as Kaleta),” Ruff said. “There was calls there I couldn’t figure it out. Kaleta just can’t hit anybody anymore. Anytime he hits somebody, it’s a penalty.”

Nothing went right for the Sabres, who suffered a seventh straight road loss.

“They got the lead, they sat back,” Ruff said. “I don’t know if they had more than four or five chances in the last forty minutes, and turned it into a little bit of a dump and chase game for us.”

Though the Sabres piled up 32 shots, they created few good scoring chances.

“I’ve seen stretches where you don’t score,” said Ruff, whose team has been held to two goals or less in nine of ten games. “This might be my toughest stretch as a coach, where pucks don’t go in the net.”

“It’s frustrating because we’ve talked about getting to the net, getting pucks to the net to try and get some more goal scoring,” said Miller, who stopped 26 of 28 shots. “And we don’t get rewarded with anything tonight. We talked about being hard in front of the net, maybe drawing some penalties, and we don’t even get a power play.”

It didn’t help that Sabres leading goal-scorer Thomas Vanek played only four minutes in the first period and did not return for the second — an absence Ruff attributed to food poisoning, dismissing an earlier report that Vanek had an upper-body injury.

The Sabres will have a chance for revenge on home ice Friday night as they host the Leafs at the First Niagara Center.

Who the fuck stuck a dyno charge up the leaf’s ass, three in a row, seriously?

• Wins: 19
• losses: 21
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 41

recap.

Leafs overcome Wings’ rally in 4-3 win
Saturday, 01.07.2012 / 10:12 PM
TORONTO — Jonas Gustavsson stood tall, turning away 37 shots, as the Toronto Maple Leafs won their third game in a row with a 4-3 victory against the Detroit Red Wings at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night.

With fans from both clubs in attendance, the crowd was lively from the drop of the puck, and especially in the final tense moments.

Joffrey Lupul scored what proved to be the game-winning goal at 7:10 of the third period, beating a surprised Jimmy Howard after taking advantage of a Wings’ turnover from behind the net.

The Wings almost tied the game 4-4 in the final minute with the extra attacker, when Pavel Datsyuk set up Johan Franzen, but Gustavsson stoned him to preserve the slim one-goal lead.

Detroit evened the score 3-3 early in the third, when Jiri Hudler was left alone in front to bury a Brad Stuart rebound. The goal brought the Wings all the way back from a 3-0 deficit after 20 minutes of play.

The Red Wings controlled the play in the second, holding Toronto to just two shots while peppering Gustavsson with 14 and scoring the only two goals of period, cutting the Leafs’ lead to 3-2 after 40 minutes.

The Wings got on the board at 6:46 of the second period, when Todd Bertuzzi scored his sixth of the season as he tipped Pavel Datsyuk’s shot past Gustavsson. Following an argument from the Leafs that Bertuzzi had scored with a high stick, replays concluded that wasn’t the case.

The Detroit fans in attendance almost had more to cheer about at the midpoint of the period. Once again, it was Bertuzzi making noise, this time bearing down on Gustavsson after being set up with a nice pass from the side boards. However, Gustavsson was able to elongate his body, sliding out from his crease, preventing the chance and causing Bertuzzi to go crashing over top of him.

Detroit would finally pull within one when Niklas Kronwall took matters into his own hands with less than five minutes remaining. In a great individual effort, the Wings’ blueliner — who will turn 31 in five days — took a neat pass from Franzen a few feet inside Toronto’s blue line and then swooped from the outside in towards Gustavsson, outmuscling both Dion Phaneuf and Keith Aulie to the crease before shoveling in his ninth goal of the season at 15:49.

Phil Kessel opened the scoring on a penalty shot less than five minutes in, going high on the forehand past a sprawled-out Howard. He was awarded the shot after being hooked by Ian White on a breakaway which was set up by a brilliant pass through the neutral zone from Tim Connolly.

In a game which featured clubs in the top 10 in power-play percentage, it was Toronto’s third-ranked power play that struck first. With Henrik Zetterberg in the box for holding the stick, Dion Phaneuf intercepted a Wings’ clearing attempt and fired a shot past Howard for his seventh goal of the season at 8:19.

David Steckel potted his seventh of the season via the backhand to make it 3-0 at 11:36, prompting Wings coach Mike Babcock to call a timeout.

Holy shit, we’re on a fuckin’ roll!

• Wins: 18
• losses: 21
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 39

Recap.

Leafs blank Jets 4-0 to move into top 8 in East
Thursday, 01.05.2012 / 11:52 PM
TORONTO — It was an almost-perfect night for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Tim Connolly and Mikhail Grabovski each had a goal and an assist, and Jonas Gustavsson made 24 saves for his first shutout of the season as the Leafs beat the Jets 4-0 on Thursday, avenging a 3-2 loss in Winnipeg on New Year’s Eve. The win jumped them over Washington and New Jersey into seventh place in the East with 45 points; Washington and New Jersey have 44, though the Devils have a game in hand and the Caps have two.

The only thing marring a perfect night for the Leafs and the packed house at Air Canada Centre came when captain Dion Phaneuf, who had an assist, four shots and a plus-2 rating, left the game late in the third period after being hit in the face by a slap shot.

“They’re looking at him now, he’ll get some x-rays, his mouth is pretty swollen,” coach Ron Wilson said afterward. “He didn’t lose any teeth and he took a shot to the side of the face but we’ll just have to wait and see what the x-rays and everything else show.”

In a game the Leafs dominated from the start, the top two centermen, Connolly and Grabovski, were the catalysts for an all-around team performance. Connolly assisted on Phil Kessel’s 23rd goal to open the scoring, then scored the Leafs’ second goal.

Connolly credited linemates Kessel and Joffrey Lupul for his performance.

“No matter who they have been playing with they have been doing a good job offensively all year,” Connolly said. “I’m getting a lot of chances and taking advantage of those chances. I’m just trying to fill in for (Tyler Bozak), get those guys the puck and do the little things.”

“Timmy knows where to be,” Wilson said of the veteran center. “He’s usually the third man high, and when he gets the puck he doesn’t waste any time distributing it, and if he’s got time he’ll wait until somebody gets open.”

Grabovski, who scored the Leafs’ third goal and assisted on Clarke MacArthur’s tally that completed the scoring in the third period, impressed his coach with his defensive work.

“The big thing with Grabo is he’s digging in down low, closer to our D, helping out defensively,” Wilson said, “so we spend less time in our end and he gets the puck and is able to make some attack plays.”

Gustavsson notched his second career shutout and first since 2009 on a night when his team played exceptional defense and kept quality chances to a minimum.

“Of course it’s good,” said Gustavsson, who has eight wins in his last 11 games. “But it’s not like I feel I’m going to have a shutout next game just because of this. You need the team to help you out, you need to be lucky a couple times with the bounces and so on. But I guess it’s a good sign that you did something right.”

With back-to-back wins against Tampa Bay and Winnipeg, Gustavsson is making the most of his chance to play following the struggles of starter James Reimer to regain his form. Reimer is 3-4-3 in 10 games after returning from a head injury and may wind up watching Gustavsson play again when Detroit comes to town on Saturday.

“I don’t try to think so much about it,” Gustavsson said of earning more playing time. “Just when I get the chance I try to make the most of it, have fun and enjoy it. Go out and play and try to get two points. If you do that and you play good, chances are you’re going to play again.”

For the second straight game the Leafs did not give up a power-play goal — no mean feat for the team with the League’s worst penalty kill. Toronto helped itself by giving the Jets just one power play.

Wilson was pleased with the way the entire team played defensively against the Jets.

“Sometimes it doesn’t necessarily result in shot blocks or stats,” he said. “Our forwards are doing a better job of rushing at the defensemen and forcing them to put the puck in the corner or behind the net instead of a direct shot which is good, or they end up shooting it wide.”

Kessel opened the scoring five minutes into the first period. Connolly won a battle with Jim Slater behind the Jets’ net and poked the puck to Lupul. He fired a quick cross-ice pass to Kessel, who one-timed the puck past Chris Mason from the slot.

Coming off a four-point night Tuesday, Lupul was the Leafs most dangerous player early on, threatening to widen the lead on a couple of occasions. He beat Tobias Enstrom on a between-the-legs drag move midway through the period but was denied by Mason. In the final minute he unleashed a slapper from the slot that was ticketed for the top corner, but Mason got an arm on it to keep the Jets within one after 20 minutes.

Toronto made it 2-0 at 1:22 of the middle period. On a rare play in which the Jets took two delayed penalties, Connolly scored his seventh of the season on a slap shot from the left circle after Mason stopped a Joey Crabb re-direction.

Late in the period the Jets swung the momentum and created some good chances, only to be thwarted by Gustavsson and a bit of bad luck. The best chance fell to Alexander Burmistrov who had an open net but hit both posts and the crossbar as the puck somehow stayed out.

Toronto extended their lead to 3-0 at 3:38 of the third period when Grabovski took a pass from Nikolai Kulemin and fired a wrister high to the blocker side past Mason for his 12th goal of the season.

The turnover problems that plagued the Jets in Wednesday night’s 7-3 loss at Montreal continued to be a problem. Grabovski took advantage of a bad giveaway by Ron Hainsey to set up MacArthur for his 12th of the season to make the score 4-0, a power-play goal at 10:37.

Winnipeg (19-16-5) is 10th with 43 points and has lost back-to-back road games after going 10-3-1 while playing 12 of 14 December games at home.

Coach Claude Noel was blunt in assessing his team’s failures.

“They got a fast team, they played a good game, we didn’t handle their speed real well,” Noel said. “They’re a hard team to handle if you give them some space — they can turn a little bit of space in to a lot. We ended up chasing them a lot. They were good, they were better than us.”

The Jets have lost the first two games of a four-game road trip. Their record away from the MTS Centre fell to 5-10-4. They are 14-6-1 at home.

“When we’re at home it’s easy to find that excitement and legs, it’s a big part of our game, the speed, both ways,” captain Andrew Ladd said. “Seems like when we get on the road, we stop. We’ve got to find a way to get that excitement back and get our legs going and play 200 feet all the way up and all the way back.”

Noel emphasized the importance of ending the two-game skid, with road games looming in Buffalo on Saturday and Boston on Tuesday.

“We got to get back to work. There is no easy way around these things. For me, you hit a bump in the road, it’s how you’re going to respond to these things,” said Noel. “There’s no easy games. There’s different levels that get raised at different times of the year and this is what you’re starting to see. And now we’re on the road where you don’t have the comfort level of the home and you got to find a way to get it done.”

We turn around after that loss and deliver a goddamn ass wooping!

• Wins: 17
• losses: 21
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 37

Here’s the recap.

Lupul leads Leafs to 7-3 win over Bolts
Tuesday, 01.03.2012 / 11:43 PM
TORONTO — Joffrey Lupul had a goal and three assists — including the 300th point of his career — as the Toronto Maple Leafs cruised to a 7-3 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night.

In two meetings this season, Toronto has now outscored the Bolts by a margin of 14-4.

Two power-play goals in the third period by Dion Phaneuf and Phil Kessel capped the offense in a game in which the bulk of the scoring came in a two minute span in the second period that resulted in four goals being netted between the clubs.

Steven Stamkos started the onslaught at 11:55, scoring his League-leading 27th goal of the season. Martin St. Louis set up the play, pouncing on a pass that was intended for Tim Connolly, but went behind him. St. Louis streaked up the ice to create an odd man rush with the NHL’s leading goal scorer.
Stamkos made no mistake putting the puck past Jonas Gustavsson, off the post and in to tie the game at two.

Thirty-three seconds later, Mikhail Grabovski took a long flip pass from Lupul and fired a shot over the shoulder of Mathieu Garon into the top corner for his 11th of the season. The goal temporarily restored Toronto’s one-goal lead.

Tampa Bay would tie the game once again when former Leafs defenseman Pavel Kubina blasted a shot from the top of the left faceoff circle through traffic just 58 seconds after Grabovski’s goal for his third of the season. However, a Tampa Bay turnover at Toronto’s blue line gave the Leafs another scoring chance they would convert on at 13:43. Matt Frattin — who was celebrating his 24th birthday — found a wide open Darryl Boyce in front of the net with a pass from the corner. Boyce’s first goal of the season put the Leafs back on top 4-3 and prompted Guy Boucher to pull Garon in favor of Dwayne Roloson.

Garon left the game after allowing four goals on 21 shots.

“I blame myself a bit because I wanted to change (Garon) the goal before and I didn’t and I didn’t follow my feeling and it wasn’t because he was bad on the fourth goal — it’s just I felt it might have been the moment to do so and I didn’t do so,” Lightning coach Guy Boucher said. “Even if we would have changed goaltenders four times, it still wouldn’t have given us poise with the puck and it certainly wouldn’t have given us better zone coverage. We were just awful in coverage and we turned the puck over again like we used to when we weren’t playing well on the road. All our diseases came back at the same time.”

The second-period scoring did not stop with Boyce’s goal. Frattin made his birthday a little bit sweeter with a goal to add to his assist in the final minute of the period. The goal gave the Leafs a 5-3 lead they would take into the second intermission. Frattin buried a rebound from Nazem Kadri’s wraparound attempt, which was kicked out by Roloson with his right pad. Roloson ended the night with three goals allowed on 21 shots.

The Lightning struck first when Vincent Lecavalier opened the scoring just: 58 seconds in, settling down a lively puck through soft coverage in the Leafs’ zone before beating Gustavsson. JT Wyman drew the first assist, sending the puck into the slot from behind the net.

The Leafs tied the game two and a half minutes later when Lupul scored his 18th of the season. Connolly set up the scoring play, circling behind the Tampa Bay net and throwing a pass back across the ice to Lupul, who was unmarked at the faceoff circle to the right of Garon. His quick shot just trickled past the Lightning net minder and he is now just two goals away from reaching the 20-goal plateau for the fourth time in his career and first time since 2008-2009.

“I never thought I would be near the top of the League in scoring, but I thought I could be a successful player that contributes offensively and plays a somewhat physical game and that’s been my goal the whole way through — to keep playing solid hockey,” said Lupul, who tied a season high for points in a game and now has 44 points on the season. “Our guys did a great job tonight blocking shots. Our goalie made big saves. We were a little more assertive on our clears when we got those loose pucks and we were making sure they got down the ice. Frattin made a couple of big plays for us in the second period right after they had tied it and he made a really good play on Darryl Boyce’s goal, so it’s good to see a guy getting an opportunity and stepping up.”

Toronto went ahead at 8:46 when Carl Gunnarsson’s point shot fooled Garon. Once again, it was Connolly providing the offensive spark as his initial pass from the side boards into the middle of the ice in the Tampa Bay zone intended for Lupul bounced off a Tampa Bay leg back towards its own goal. Lupul got his stick on the puck in at the side of the net, but his scoring attempt went back out through the crease towards the half boards. Connolly was able to secure the puck and send it back to Gunnarsson at the blue line for his second of the year.

The Leafs’ 30th-ranked penalty kill was put to the test, especially with 1:25 to go in the first when Connolly was sent off for high sticking a charging Steve Downie in the neutral zone. The penalty put Toronto down two men as Luke Schenn was already in the box serving a roughing call.

“He’s gotta play that style of game. He plays hard,” Phaneuf said of Downie, who took 20 minutes in penalties — including a 10 minute misconduct in the second period. “Our whole group was pretty disciplined and when we did get a penalty we did a really good job of killing it off. We talked lots about wanting to get off on the right foot at home and we will take these points and now we move forward to Thursday.”

Toronto killed off all five man advantages the Lightning had on the night.

“Our power play is the worst in the League on the road. We’re last and you saw why,” Boucher said. “I don’t know what happens on the road. We lose all poise. We’re fourth in the League at home and last on the road. When you play that bad on the power play, it has a tendency to hurt you on the momentum side. Sometimes I feel like we could have four orange cones against us on the road and we still couldn’t manage to get a shot.”

Stamkos echoed Boucher’s sentiments.

“We didn’t play our game from the beginning and it was pretty embarrassing after that,” he said. “The amount of urgency we should be showing at this time of the year with the position we are in — that is definitely not a good effort. Hopefully guys’ eyes got opened tonight with our performance.”

playing catch up.

• Wins: 16
• losses: 21
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 35

Recap

Jets finish record month with 3-2 win
Sunday, 01.01.2012 / 12:11 AM
WINNIPEG – Before the Winnipeg Jets hit the road in January, they had one last opportunity to exercise their power play in front of their fans at the MTS Centre. The Toronto Maple Leafs provided the perfect opposition to do so.

The Jets struck twice on six man-advantage chances to take a 3-2 New Year’s Eve decision in front of another raucous home crowd and close out their busy home slate before a January that will see them away from their building for nine of 13 games.

“Once again, Winnipeg proves it’s a great place to play,” said Winnipeg’s Zach Bogosian. “It was crazy out there.”

Penalty trouble also stalled the Leafs late in the game. With Toronto down a goal and threatening in the final five minutes, Tim Connolly’s offensive-zone penalty helped mitigate any chance of a rally for the Leafs, who have now dropped three consecutive games to end their four-game road swing. Toronto now sits in 10th place in the Eastern Conference.

The Jets (19-14-5) played 12 of 14 games at home December, going 9-2-1 to fuel their climb up the Eastern Conference standings, where they now sit in seventh place — just four points behind the Florida Panthers in the Southeast Division. Just 9-11-4 and stuck in 13th place in the Eastern Conference when December began, the Jets have climbed into the thick of the playoff race this month. The Jets’ 10-3-1 December record now stands as the best month in franchise history.

“We’re in a good place,” Jets coach Claude Noel said. “We wanted to win today, because we wanted to be in a good place, and I think that we are. It’ll be good to get the day off and get a couple days of practice in. I’m going to smile for you, and then we’re going to wish you a Happy New Year. There’s a lot of joy in my life today.”

Only three clubs had earned fewer power-play opportunities than the Jets’ 120 entering the game. Against the Leafs’ NHL-worst penalty kill, the Jets had plenty of time and opportunity to work on a power that is 10th-best in the NHL on home ice.

“We wanted to get on the power play,” Jets defenseman Ron Hainsey said. “When a team is struggling like that, you know it and you’ve got to get on the power play as much as you can.”

Goals from Bogosian, Andrew Ladd and Blake Wheeler carried the Winnipeg offense, while checking-line winger Antti Miettinen picked up his first two assists as a Jet. Goaltender Ondrej Pavelec handed in yet another stout performance, stopping 21 shots in holding an opponent to two or fewer goals for the eighth time in his 11 December starts.

“We were moving our feet well,” Wheeler said. “We drew a lot of penalties, and we made them pay on the power play. That what you have to do in these tight games.”

The Jets unleashed a pair of power-play goals – and another strike four seconds after a Toronto penalty expired – in a second-period span of 7:59 that erased the Leafs’ 1-0 first-intermission lead and left Toronto coach Ron Wilson exasperated with his club’s penalty kill.

“We kicked two pucks in our own net,” Wilson said. “Defensemen are supposed to box out. One [goal] went off Luke [Schenn's] knee when he should have gotten out of the way, not screening the goalie or trying to block that one.”

“We put ourselves in that position,” Wilson said. “We should know better. We have some guys are making the same mistakes and screening the goalie. We’re screening the goalie better than the opposition is.”

Clarke MacArthur and Phil Kessel picked up goals for the Leafs (18-15-5), while goaltender James Reimer stopped 32 of 35 shots in his NHL debut in his home province. But Winnipeg used Toronto’s 7:35 of second-period shorthanded time to stall the Leafs for much of the period and own a 28-12 shots advantage after 40 minutes.

“We didn’t kill a couple of those penalties off where we should have,” Wilson said of the Leafs’ second period. “They were getting a lot of momentum off their power play, and we didn’t have the time, especially in the second period, to get anything going.”

I saw this one coming.

• Wins: 16
• losses: 20
• shootout wins:
  3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 35

recap

‘Canes rally to beat Leafs 4-3 in OT
Thursday, 12.29.2011 / 11:25 PM
RALEIGH — For 38 games, Carolina center Eric Staal struggled mightily. Then his brother — Pittsburgh center Jordan Staal — chalked up an assist.

When Eric registered his sixth straight game without a point Tuesday night against Jordan’s Penguins, the younger brother offered some postgame advice.
“He was the first one telling me, ‘Just start shooting from everywhere,” Eric Staal said. “Make it ugly.’”

The Hurricanes captain heeded the first part of that advice, firing five shots against Toronto Thursday night. But his two goals — a breakaway and an overtime one-timer — were a sight to behold for Stall, and Hurricanes fans, as Carolina registered a 4-3 win at the RBC Center.

Staal also added an assist on the game-tying goal by Zac Dalpe, as the Hurricanes overcame a 3-1 third-period deficit.

Staal had been mired in a season-long slump, with just 20 points and a -22 plus/minus rating entering Thursday night’s game. So in the hours before facing Toronto, Staal was focused on Jordan’s advice.

“I talked to him on the way to the rink tonight,” Staal explained. “I said, ‘I’ll be firing it from all angles and we’ll see what happens.’ When you get that first one, you get some confidence.”

His first goal came with the game slipping away in the third period. Nikolai Kulemin had given Toronto a 2-1 lead at 6:36 of the third when he finished the rebound of a Darryl Boyce shot. Then Joffrey Lupul extended the lead to 3-1 on a puck that deflected in front of Hurricanes goaltender Cam Ward, who stopped 21 shots.

That’s when Dalpe sprung Staal with a lead pass from the boards that the captain slipped between the pads of Toronto goaltender James Reimer at 9:48.

Back within a goal, Carolina found some life. Dalpe, scoreless through three call-ups this season, tied the game with his fourth career goal, roofing a backhander of a Jiri Tlusty slot.

“I’d like to tell you I had it backhand the whole time, but it’s one of those plays where it’s a last resort,” said Dalpe. “It’s just instinct. When the puck’s around the net, you get hungry.”

Dalpe’s contribution may have been as welcome as Staal’s. The Hurricanes consider Dalpe the top prospect in the organization, a player with well-rounded offensive skills. But after 10 NHL games this season, he was still searching for his first point.

“Ten games without a point, obviously I’m a guy that likes to get points,” he said. “But that’s the beauty of sticking with it and staying positive. There’s a lot more work to be done, so a little bit of confidence each game, and hopefully it adds up.”

Hurricanes coach Kirk Muller was especially pleased that Dalpe had shaken off a difficult night against the Penguins. Dalpe had already started his Christmas break with the American Hockey Leaugue’s Charlotte Checkers, only to be thrown onto Staal’s line Tuesday night.

“(Dalpe’s) a goal scorer, and it’s a big step and a big adjustment for him,” said Muller. “He found the knack. That’s what they do, goal scorers. They find the right time to bury it. That was a big goal for us.”

The Toronto loss was the second in a row after a 5-3 decision at Florida on Tuesday. It didn’t sit well with Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson.

“I know we know how to defend a lead, and yet we didn’t,” Wilson said. “So that’s something that we’re going to have to address in practice again tomorrow.”

The Toronto coach was critical of his top line, which has been among the most productive in the NHL all season. Joffrey Lupul registered four shots, but Tyler Bozak and Phil Kessel did not manage any.

“They didn’t have a very good game tonight,” he said. “A lot of turnovers in our zone, so our wings need to play better. It’s just one of those nights that happens.”

Hurricanes center Brandon Sutter played a role in frustrating Toronto’s top line, making several smart defensive plays as well as winning 12 of 17 faceoffs. Sutter scored the first goal of the game when he beat Reimer over the glove for his eighth of the season.

“It was all about our leadership tonight — Brandon Sutter, Staal, Ward in the nets,” said Muller. “I thought they had great games, battling to the end, fighting through the adversity like we talked about. When your leaders play like that, there’s nothing better.”

And the best part for Muller was seeing his captain be a difference maker.

“I thought Staal was the best player on the ice tonight,” he said. “You talk to him and tell him to do the right things, and the end result will kick in somewhere. It was great that it happened tonight because it was a big load off him. I know it’s just one game, but that’s a huge game mentally for him.”

time to quickly catch up on these pre show onMojo Radio

• Wins: 16
• losses: 19
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 35

recap.

Minor-league call-ups lead Panthers past Leafs, 5-3
Wednesday, 12.28.2011 / 3:18 AM
SUNRISE, Fla. (AP) — The Florida Panthers’ scoring difficulties ended at the right time.
Coming into Tuesday night’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Panthers had not scored more than three goals since Dec. 5, a span of nine games, including an 8-0 loss in their last game against Boston.

However, the Panthers broke out of their drought as Kris Versteeg and Jason Garrison scored power play goals for the Panthers in a 5-3 win over the Maple Leafs.

“That’s what we were really looking for,” Panthers coach Kevin Dineen said. “They’re a really good hockey team. We’re so respectful of the talent and that’s not just blabber after the game. We really were worried about the speed and the skill that they have and sometimes the best defense is a good offense.”

Erik Gudbranson, Bill Thomas, and Tomas Fleischmann also scored for the Panthers, and Brian Campbell had three assists.

“Right now with so many guys out, we may have to win games 1-0, 2-1, obviously it’s nice to get a few,” Campbell said.

Jose Theodore stopped 29 of 32 shots for the Panthers, who snapped a three-game losing streak.

Mikhail Grabovski scored two goals to lead for the Leafs. Dion Phaneuf also scored.

Florida was 2 for 3 on the power play. Toronto was 1 for 4.

The Maple Leafs trailed 4-2 in the third when Grabovski and Jake Gardiner hit the post on consecutive long shots.

Grabovski did score when a shot by Clarke MacArthur deflected off his left skate while falling backwards in front of the net. The goal at 9:17 was reviewed and upheld, and cut the lead to 4-3.

Fleischmann gave the Panthers a 5-3 lead as he sneaked a puck past Jonas Gustavsson from the right wing and the Panthers held on for the final eight minutes.

“He scores big goals for us, that’s what big-time players do,” Campbell said.

Florida, coming off an 8-0 loss to Boston on Dec. 23, struck in the opening period on their first shot on goal.

Tim Kennedy dug the puck off the side boards away from Joffrey Lupul and passed it back to Gudbranson, who rocketed a slap shot from the blue line past James Reimer’ glove side for a 1-0 lead. It was the second goal of the season for the 19-year old rookie defenseman.

The Leafs outshot the Panthers 11-4 in the first and were finally able to score in the second. Grabovski converted after nifty passes from Cody Franson and Nikolai Kulemin.

Nineteen seconds later, the Panthers responded as Thomas got ahead of the pack and scored on a breakaway as the puck slid off his stick beating Reimer.

“You can’t do much about the guy who missed his shot,” Reimer said. “It was a kind of a fluky goal.”

Reimer’s night ended after the Panthers extended their lead to 3-1 on a power-play goal by Garrison.

Reimer stopped five of eight shots before being replaced by Gustavsson, who didn’t fare much better as Versteeg scored a 5 on 3-power play goal three minutes into his turn in net.

The Panthers’ second-period scoring barrage, which included three goals in less than five minutes, gave them a 4-1 lead.

“It was 1-to-1 and we were controlling the game,” Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “They scored early but didn’t have a sniff after that and from 1-to-1 we should’ve been able to springboard off of that and we immediately gave them the lead right back.”

NOTES: Prior to the game, the Maple Leafs placed D John-Michael Liles on injured reserve due to concussion-like symptoms stemming from a hit by Buffalo’s Paul Gaustad on Dec. 22. . Maple Leafs F Joffrey Lupul has recorded a point in nine of his last 10 games. . Panthers F Stephen Weiss (upper body injury) missed his second consecutive game. . Panthers top prospect Jonathan Huberdeau, the third overall pick in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, had a goal and four assists for Canada in an 8-1 win over Finland at the world junior hockey championship Monday. … Former NFL and Florida Gators star Jevon Kearse was in attendance.

sorry new york but you had to lose this one.

• Wins: 16
• losses: 18
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 35

Recap.

Leafs start fast, hold off Islanders 5-3
Saturday, 12.24.2011 / 2:50 AM
The Toronto Maple Leafs have a lot to smile about as they reach the Christmas break.

The Leafs head into the holiday off their best pre-Christmas performance since 2003-04 after they used a three-goal first period to beat the New York Islanders 5-3 on Friday night at the Nassau Coliseum.

Goals by Clarke MacArthur, Nazem Kadri and Carl Gunnarsson gave the Leafs a 3-0 lead just 11:15 into the game, and Joey Crabb added a shorthanded goal midway through the second period as Toronto won for the 18th time in 35 games this season. With an 18-13-4 record and 40 points, Toronto is sixth in the Eastern Conference and has its best record at the Christmas break since going 20-6-6-3 in ’03-04 — the last time the Leafs made the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Needless to say, it’s a happy Christmas in Toronto as the Leafs head home for a couple of days before resuming their four-game trip at Florida on Tuesday.

“It’s funny how miserable Christmas is when you lose,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “You’re miserable whenever you lose, but you don’t want to be Ebenezer Scrooge at Christmas time.

“This is nice to get a little bit of a cushion, for our team to relax and get over some of the bumps and bruises that we have.”

Despite struggling to control rebounds for much of the night, James Reimer made 30 saves to improve to 7-3-3 this season. Twelve of those save came in the third period as the Isles pressed for the tie after John Tavares scored at 10:30 to cut the margin to one goal before Joffrey Lupul hit the empty net with 8.9 seconds remaining in the game to give the Leafs wins on back-to-back nights entering the break.

“We said we wanted to focus on winning the two before the break, go in feeling good about ourselves,” captain Dion Phaneuf said. “We are. We’ll use these couple of days to recharge.

“They call it a break, but it’s not really a break, it’s two days,” he added. “We’ll go enjoy our time away and come back ready to work. It’s a big trip after Christmas.”

The Islanders, who lost 4-2 to the Rangers in New York on Thursday, fell to 11-16-6 and are No. 14 in the East, 11 points out of the last playoff spot. They have not made the playoffs since 2006-07

Both teams were playing for the second time in as many nights, but though the Leafs had to fly to Long Island after winning in Toronto on Thursday, they were by far the more spirited team in the opening period.

“We came out strong,” Reimer said. “They may have had some holiday distractions, but I feel we were just more determined.”

MacArthur put the Leafs ahead just 1:45 into the game. Tim Connolly carried deep into the Islanders zone before dishing to MacArthur in the right circle. He cut to the net and beat Evgeni Nabokov with a quick, high shot from well below the faceoff dot for his 10th of the season.

Marty Reasoner took a needless tripping penalty at 2:37, and with 15 seconds left on the power play, Kadri got his second goal in two nights to make it 2-0. Nabokov kicked Jake Gardiner’s long slapper onto the stick of Josh Bailey, but the Isles’ center flubbed his clearing attempt right onto the stick of Kadri, who put home a backhander from the slot through traffic.

A shaky Nabokov had no one but himself to blame at 11:15, when Gunnarson’s 55-foot straightaway slapper beat him cleanly for a 3-0 lead. It was Gunnarson’s first goal of the season and brought boos from the Nassau Coliseum crowd.

“When you’re not moving your feet, good things don’t happen,” Isles coach Jack Capuano said. “We were flat-footed. We weren’t ready to play, and they took advantage of that.

“You can’t give a team like that extended time in your zone. We did that in the first period, and they capitalized.”

The Isles quieted some of those boos at 15:45 when Mike Mottau’s stretch pass caught Kyle Okposo in full flight to set up a 2-on-1 break. Okposo carried well into the left circle before snapping a shot past Reimer’s glove into the top right corner for his sixth goal of the season, all of which have come in the past 15 games.

Toronto entered the game with the NHL’s worst penalty-killing numbers, and the Islanders made them pay 40 seconds into the second period for an interference call against Keith Aulie with 30.6 seconds left in the first. Frans Nielsen scored his first goal since Nov. 15 when he picked a deflected puck out of a tangle of feet in the slot and zipped it past Reimer to make it 3-2.

But the Leafs’ penalty killers struck back at 8:59. With Toronto’s Cody Franson in the box for high-sticking, Tyler Bozak stole the puck from PA Parenteau in his own zone and fed Crabb to start a 2-on-1. Crabb and Bozak played give-and-go before Crabb hit the wide-open left side of the net for his sixth of the season and the fourth shorthanded goal by Toronto this season.

Nabokov kept it a two-goal game with big stops on Gardiner and Nikolai Kulemin in the final minute of the second period, then made another 9:32 into the third period when he went left to right and stoned Phil Kessel on a 2-on-1 after a perfect pass from Lupul. That became a big play less than a minute later when Tavares took Parenteau’s pass out, stepped to his left in the slot and out-waited Reimer before putting the puck inside the left post for his 11th of the season.

The game marked the return to Long Island of Toronto assistant Scott Gordon, who was fired as Islanders coach last November and hired by Wilson this past summer.

here’s another win. miracles.

• Wins: 15
• losses: 18
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 33

The recap.

Maple Leafs hold off Sabres 3-2
Friday, 12.23.2011 / 1:50 AM
TORONTO — Nazem Kadri finally gave Maple Leafs fans a taste of what they have been waiting for.

Toronto’s first-round pick in the 2009 NHL Draft scored the go-ahead goal 5:52 into the third period and James Reimer stopped 40 shots as the Leafs edged the Buffalo Sabres 3-2 Thursday night at Air Canada Centre.

The win snapped the Leafs’ three-game losing streak and moved them into sixth place in the Eastern Conference going into Friday’s game on Long Island, their last before the Christmas break.

The Leafs also got goals by Phil Kessel and David Steckel, but it was Kadri who became the hero in his first NHL game since Oct. 24. After Derek Roy broke in off the right wing and beat Reimer with a wrist shot 1:28 into the third period to tie the game at 2-2, Kadri put the Leafs ahead to stay by beating Ryan Miller with a wrister from the slot off a nice drop pass by Clarke MacArthur.

“It felt great,” Kadri said of his goal. “It’s nice to have an immediate impact. Last year it took me a few games to score the first one so it’s great to get the monkey off my back. Hopefully there are more to come.”

Kadri is known for his offensive skill, but he feels spending most of the past two seasons with the AHL Toronto Marlies has helped his two-way game.

“I was controlling the puck well, when I did get my touches I didn’t make any turnovers,” he said, “I was making smart plays; it shows what I’ve learned and that I’m ready to play.”

Coach Ron Wilson didn’t disagree,

“He made plays, he was good along the wall in our zone, that’s what he has to do,” Wilson said. “He’s smart, he sees the ice, he’s got confidence, he skates into holes, and he distributes the puck really well.”

It was Kadri’s first goal in four games with the Leafs this season and the fourth of his career; the other three came during a 29-game recall last season. Kadri admitted he had some tense moments late in the third period when he took a tripping penalty with the Sabres down a goal.

“I was holding my breath in the penalty box,” he said, “but the PK came through.”

Instrumental in keeping the Sabres off the scoreboard was the play of Reimer, who has made 40 saves in each of the last two games, and looks to be regaining the form he showed as a rookie last season.

Reimer said he had a lot of help,

“Our penalty-killing was great tonight, they blocked a lot of shots, and 5-on-5 they kept them to the outside, I saw [the shots] all the way in,” he said. “We battled hard in the defensive zone tonight, even though they got a lot of shots I was able to see most of them.”

Reimer missed more than a month after a collision with Montreal’s Brian Gionta on Oct. 22, and Wilson said the young goaltender is just starting to get back to the form he had before being hurt.

“He looks a little more comfortable in there,” Wilson said. “To get the win in a tight hard-fought game like that is only going to do his confidence and our whole team’s confidence a lot of good.”

For the injury-plagued Sabres, who were missing six regulars, the loss was their third straight and fifth in six games. They will get a few days to heal before returning to action at home Monday against Washington.

“We got the number of shots,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said after his team outshot the Leafs 42-31. “We got the chances. We got the lead. We bounced back and had a great start to the third period. We just haven’t had much ricochet or have many bounces go our way.”

The Leafs had the better of a scoreless first period, outshooting the Sabres 12-6. Miller was forced to make several good saves, stopping a Mikhail Grabovski redirection midway through the period and then a stuff attempt by Kessel a minute later. Near the end of the period, Miller denied Tyler Bozak from short range to keep Toronto off the scoresheet. The Leafs also squandered some glorious opportunities, Matt Frattin fanned on a sweet 2-on-1 feed from Grabovski, and Grabovski fired high on another prime chance.

The Sabres rebounded from their slow start and took control early in the second period, aided by four Toronto penalties in the first 10:37. Reimer was put to the test as the Sabres held a 14-1 edge in shots midway through the period but couldn’t score until Jason Pominville got his 11th of the season at 11:49 by banking the puck off Leafs defenseman Luke Schenn and past Reimer for a power-play goal.

Miller made a big save off a Kessel one-timer, helping the Sabres kill a 5-on-3 power play for 55 seconds. But the Leafs finally solved Miller at 15:52 when Steckel swept home the rebound of Schenn’s slapper from the point. With the crowd still buzzing after Steckel’s sixth goal of the season, Joffrey Lupul set up Kessel off the rush with a backhand pass across the slot and Kessel beat Miller for his 20th goal of the season at 16:54, giving Toronto two goals in 62 seconds and a 2-1 lead.

Kessel joins Chicago’s Jonathan Toews, Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos and Marian Gaborik of the New York Rangers as the only players to reach the 20-goal mark this season.

The Sabres had plenty of chances after Kadri’s goal, but they continue to struggle offensively and take a 1-4-1 record in their last six games into the Christmas break.

“We wanted to end this on a pretty good note here,” a disappointed Pominville said. “Again, the effort was there, and the results weren’t. If we keep putting efforts up like this and limit those little [mental mistakes], we’re going to get on a roll here.”

title says it all.

• Wins: 14
• losses: 18
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 2
• points: 31

Here’s the recap.

Kings edge Leafs in shootout
Tuesday, 12.20.2011 / 12:05 AM
TORONTO — Los Angeles Kings captain Dustin Brown scored a power-play goal and the shootout winner and Jonathan Quick stopped 31 shots in a pulsating 3-2 victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Air Canada Centre on Monday night.

The victory was a much needed one for the Kings, who had lost six of seven games. It evened the record of interim coach John Stevens at 2-2, with new bench boss Darryl Sutter expected to be officially introduced Tuesday.

Stevens, who is expected to be retained as an assistant, stressed the positives of the situation the new coach is inheriting.

“The one thing he can rest assured is that we have some quality people here to build around,” Stevens said of Sutter. “We’ve got a lot of good soldiers in the room there who are going to help us get out of this.”

Monday was a good first step towards turning things around. For the first time in 12 games, the League’s lowest-ranked offense scored 3 goals in a contest, peppering Leafs goaltender James Reimer with 42 shots.

Brown was particularly strong, leading the way with 6 shots on goal and 5 hits. The top line of Brown, Anze Kopitar and Simon Gagne was dangerous all night, sustaining puck possession in the Leafs’ zone and cycling to create multiple scoring chances.

“It’s important that we got two points,” Brown said. “For everyone, it’s been a long road trip — not only with the travel, but with everything that has gone on.”

Only the heroics of Reimer, who made 40 saves, kept the Leafs in the game and allowed them to gain a valuable point in the standings. Toronto coach Ron Wilson lauded his goaltender.

“He played really well, he saw just about every puck in traffic, he made some great saves,” said Wilson. “He had some trouble at times handling the puck, but I’d be nitpicking. He made the saves we needed.”

Reimer, who has struggled recently since after returning from a concussion, drew confidence from his performance.

“I was reading the play and the pucks were hitting me,” Reimer said. “To get that result, it just gives you more confidence. When they’re not going your way, you have to work hard and fight and be mentally tough to give yourself confidence and this it just gives you a little bit of a boost.”

Reimer and Quick both had to be sharp right from the opening faceoff. In a wide-open first period, the Leafs outshot the Kings 15-14. Justin Williams opened the scoring at 7:54 when he took advantage of a strange bounce off a dump-in by Drew Doughty. The puck caromed off the glass right into the slot and Williams beat Reimer with a wrist shot for his fifth of the season.

The Leafs answered just over three minutes later, as Matt Frattin’s aggressive forecheck forced Quick to fire the puck blindly around the boards right to Tyler Bozak. The latter then fed John Michael-Liles moving in from the left point, and Liles blasted a slap shot past Quick for his fourth goal of the season.

The Kings dominated the second period, outshooting the Leafs 16-4, and scored the only goal on a controversial play. L.A.’s struggling power play finally broke through for its first tally in seven games with Luke Schenn in the box for tripping. Doughty made a key play at the blue line to keep the puck in the zone, starting a sequence of quick passes that went from Kopitar to Gagne to a wide-open Brown in the slot, where he fired it past Reimer for his seventh goal of the season.

But Wilson thought Doughty might have failed to keep the puck inside the blue line.

“I’m not sure if the puck was offside, but it sure looked like it,” Wilson said.

Entering the third period down 2-1, the Leafs struck early to tie the game, as Frattin converted a long backdoor saucer pass from Mikhail Grabovski for his fourth goal of the season. From there the goaltenders took over, holding the fort through the final period and overtime until the Kings prevailed in the shootout.

“It was huge,” Doughty said. “It kind of (stunk) that they scored that goal to tie it up late, but we were pushing back. We needed that win. We needed that two points. Brownie did a great job with a great shot in the shootout, bar down, and it was huge for us. The two points is what we came here for, and it was great to get it.”

The Leafs, who have now lost five of six games, will be without forward Colby Armstrong for the immediate future as they try to right the ship on Thursday against Buffalo. Armstrong was a late scratch Monday when it was discovered he was dealing with a concussion suffered Saturday night against the Canucks.

The Kings, meanwhile, await the start of the Sutter era, which will begin at home Thursday against Anaheim.

Ouch.

• Wins: 14
• losses: 17
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 31

recap:

Canucks end trip with win at Toronto
Sunday, 12.18.2011 / 12:02 AM
TORONTO — The Vancouver Canucks ended their road trip on a high note after beating the Toronto Maple Leafs by a 5-3 score at the Air Canada Centre on Saturday night.

Timely goals and highlight-reel saves by Roberto Luongo — who made 26 saves — propelled Vancouver to victory and a 3-1-1 record on its five-game road trip.

The Canucks put the game out of reach when Alexandre Burrows tallied his 11th goal of the season with just under six minutes remaining in the third period to make it 4-2.

The scoring play was a result of the Canucks taking advantage of a lot of time and space which started when Henrik Sedin took the puck from Phil Kessel and was allowed to skate clear through the neutral zone before finding Burrows just over the blue line. From there, Burrows capitalized on soft coverage, skating in towards the middle of the faceoff circles before firing the puck in off the post. The goal sent the many Canucks fans in attendance into celebration mode.

“I thought we had lot of room all night to be honest, for some reason it seems when you play out east there is a little bit more room, it’s a little bit more entertaining, a little bit more fast paced and open then when you play some teams in the west,” said Burrows, whose game-winning goal along with an assist earned him first star honors.

“They turned the puck over in a bad area,” said Henrik Sedin, “If that happens usually you get a lot of room, we we’re up against a team that played the second day of a back to back and they looked a little tired, but we played well and didn’t give them a whole lot.”

Kessel scored his 19th of the season, taking Tyler Bozak’s tape-to-tape pass from the corner to cut the lead to 4-3 giving hope to the home-side and to their fans, but Jannik Hansen put an end to that by scoring his 10th for the Canucks back up by 2 with 1:40 left. Hansen by pounced on a loose puck in the neutral zone and outmuscled Dion Phaneuf to the net, going to his forehand and beat Jonas Gustavsson to make it 5-3.

“They had the puck in deep, nobody was out on the left point so I could skate out on it and their d-men had been on for long and maybe were tired so I tried to make it a race and cut in front of them and I fortunate to keep the puck on my stick and able to get the puck over the shoulder of the goalie,” Hansen said.

Gustavsson, who made 31 saves, many of them tough — especially through the first two periods — was particularly tough on himself regarding Hansen’s insurance marker.

“As long as you lose the game you can’t be happy, I needed to stop that breakaway to give the team a chance at the end but other than that I felt pretty good,” Gustavsson said. “We believe in ourselves (our recent losses) have been tight games, we could have won those games. We know we are a good team and we just have to show it.”

Goals in the first and last minute of the second period gave the Canucks a 3-2 lead heading into the second intermission.

Daniel Sedin knocked in his 13th of the season with 44 seconds left, taking a tremendous feed from Burrows through two Leafs to beat Gustavsson to give Vancouver a one-goal lead after two periods of play.

Saturday marked Daniel Sedin’s return to the lineup after a one game absence with back spasms. It was his first goal on the Canucks’ road trip and first since Dec. 6, when he had a hat trick at home versus Columbus. It was a tough way to end the period for Gustavsson, who turned aside 11 shots, many of which were good scoring chances.

Forty-nine seconds into the period, Ryan Kesler stole the puck in the corner to the left of Gustavsson and went to the net. His jam attempt bounded out in front to Mason Raymond, who had a wide-open net to shoot at. He buried his third of the season to put the Canucks up, 2-1. Chris Higgins got the second assist on the play, giving him his second point of the night as he earned third star honors.

Canucks coach Alain Vigneault was impressed with the work of his second line.

“The line at the beginning of the game that was doing the best was Ryan Kesler’s line, those three guys had speed and were creating turnovers,” he said. “They created so many turnovers tonight, but we couldn’t make them (the Leafs) pay, we should have had that game put into our hands a little bit earlier than we did tonight.”

The Leafs drew even at two when Bozak scored at 7:33. After knocking a Kessel pass out of the air, Bozak charged down the middle of the ice towards Luongo. Alex Edler initially seemed to have to have Bozak in check, but he was able to corral the puck to his backhand and feather it over Luongo’s right shoulder for his seventh of the season. It was the first time he found the back of the net after seven games without a goal, the last time he found the back of the net before tonight was Nov. 27 in Anaheim.

The score was tied at one after 20 minutes of play. Vancouver wasted no time in getting the scoring started as Edler found Higgins wide open in front 62 seconds into the game. Higgins made a quick move to his backhand to beat Gustavsson for his ninth goal of the season.

The Leafs tied the game just less than three minutes later, when Joffrey Lupul scored on the power play. After Luongo stoned Bozak in front, Lupul was able to play the puck off his body, maintain position under pressure and get his stick on it. It was his 15th goal of the season.

Not long after the tying goal, Vancouver thought it had taken the lead, but it was ruled that Gustavsson was interfered with. Kesler argued, but to no avail.

Luongo made a spectacular save in near the midway point of the opening period, coming across on a 2-on-1 to rob Colby Armstrong on what looked to be a sure goal. Clarke MacArthur made a pinpoint pass to Armstrong, but Luongo got his glove on the puck for a dazzling save.

Luongo wasn’t done there, as he came up big again with just over five minutes remaining when Phaneuf set up Tim Connolly with a nice pass from behind the net. While Luongo anticipated Phaneuf to go around the net, he sensed the backdoor pass and came back to the near post to prevent a wide-open Connolly from scoring.
“When they needed a couple of big saves from him they obviously got them, and we never could get to a spot where we got ahead and felt good about ourselves, we were always chasing,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said.

Vancouver returns home to face the Minnesota Wild on Monday, while Toronto will play L.A. at home on Monday in what could be Darryl Sutter’s coaching debut with the Kings.

Win one, lose one. buh.

• Wins: 14
• losses: 16
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 31

Have a recap.

Sabres hold off Maple Leafs 5-4
Saturday, 12.17.2011 / 12:02 AM
Thomas Vanek helped the Buffalo Sabres’ offense come alive.

The Sabres’ top gun scored twice and added two assists as Buffalo held off the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-4 on Friday night before a full house at the First Niagara Center.

The Sabres had scored just 14 times in seven games before their Vanek-led outburst.

“We need to get our swagger back, especially when we have the lead,” said Vanek, who leads the Sabres with 16 goals. “Sometimes that’s all it takes. There’s no miracle to it. Everyone here is a good player, so when we get the lead we have to go for the next one and bury a team. We didn’t quite do that, but I think it was a step in the right direction.”

The four-point game was the fourth of Vanek’s career, but his first since April 10, 2010.

Tyler Ennis had a goal and an assist, Drew Stafford scored his 100th NHL goal and Andrej Sekera also connected for Buffalo, which finished a season-high five-game homestand with a 2-1-2 record. The Sabres (16-12-3) visit Pittsburgh on Saturday..

The Sabres trailed 2-1 midway through the second period before scoring three unanswered goals, two on the power play –for a 4-2 lead. Toronto took five penalties in the second, and all but six seconds of the final 7:03 of the middle period saw one team on the power play.

“Our power play was effective, and we were able to score on our opportunities,” Vanek said. “Sometimes that’s half the challenge for us.”

Nikolai Kulemin scored on a penalty shot in the third period, and Dion Phaneuf, Joffrey Lupul, and Mikhail Grabovski also scored for Toronto (16-12-3), which is 1-2-1 in its last four games.

Ennis’ power-play goal at 14:08 of the second broke a 2-2 tie. Sekera’s goal at 18:01 came after Phaneuf was handed a five-minute major for boarding and ejected for checking Zach Kassian into the end boards from behind.

“I didn’t mean to board him,” Phaneuf said. “I went in to finish my check and the puck got caught along the boards. He turned right at the last second.”

Kulemin converted his penalty shot at 9:56 of the third after he was tripped by Jordan Leopold on a breakaway to make it 4-3. But Vanek got his second goal of the night with 4:16 to go, and it turned into the game-winner when Grabovski scored 31 seconds later.

“It’s good that we had positive reaction to that penalty shot,” said goalie Ryan Miller, who made 29 saves. “To answer quickly keeps them out of their comfort zone.”

After a scoreless first period, the Maple Leafs struck first on Lupul’s 14th goal 1:49 into the second. On a 2-on-1 rush with Phil Kessel, Lupul took Kessel’s pass in the left circle before flicking the puck over Miller. Stafford tied it 2 1/2 minutes later when he tapped in Vanek’s passout for a power-play goal.

Toronto went ahead again on Phaneuf’s power-play goal at 9:03, but Vanek tied it 19 seconds later when he wristed in a shot from the lower left circle.

Ennis scored during a 5-on-3 power play before Sekera scored during Phaneuf’s major penalty.

“We’ve taken far too many penalties in the last two or three weeks,” Toronto coach Ron Wilson said. “Penalty-killers taking penalties doesn’t give you a chance.”

James Reimer made 24 saves in his fourth straight start for the Maple Leafs, who had their three-game winning streak against Buffalo snapped.

“I don’t think I made enough saves,” he said. “I feel like I let down the guys that worked their butts off. They scored four goals, and that should be enough to at least get a point.”

Hey, we can win! awesome!

• Wins: 14
• losses: 15
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 31

Here’s the recap.

Leafs top ‘Canes 2-1 in OT
Tuesday, 12.13.2011 / 11:49 PM
TORONTO — Tim Connolly finally gave the Toronto Leafs the kind of offensive boost they’ve been waiting for.

Connolly, a free-agent signee this summer who’s been battling injuries all season, scored his second goal of the night 44 seconds into overtime Tuesday to give the Leafs a 2-1 victory against the Carolina Hurricanes.

Connolly got his sixth goal of the season when he shoveled home a loose puck in the crease after Joffrey Lupul’s initial slapper squirted behind Cam Ward, who slammed his stick in disgust after the loss.

“I was just stretching along the far blue line and he did a great job of driving wide and shooting the puck. A lot of times in overtime that’s the best play, just to shoot it on net and then he crashed the net and I was able to pick up the loose change,” said Connolly whose last two-goal game came last Oct. 22 against Ottawa while he was a member of the Buffalo Sabres.

“Ward was doing a good job fronting pucks and stopping pucks, and we knew we were just going to have to grind it out and get a couple of ugly ones and that’s what we were able to do.”

Connolly’s heroics ended a game in which the 19,509 fans who packed the Air Canada Centre watched more than 55 minutes of scoreless hockey.

Connolly finally opened the scoring with 4:14 left in regulation. Clarke MacArthur shook off defenseman Derek Joslin by circling back to the blue line before firing a pass into a crowd to Ward’s right that Connolly deflected into the net.

Leafs coach Ron Wilson likes the depth that Connolly provides the club.

“Over his career, when he is healthy he has been a very good player, and that’s the goal here — to keep him healthy [so] he doesn’t have to play much, he plays 15 or 16 minutes,” Wilson said. “Having him [Mikhail] Grabovski and [Tyler] Bozak in the lineup and playing with different people, we’ve got a little bit of balance in terms of scoring

However, Wilson surely was not happy when Lupul was called for high-sticking less than a minute after Connolly’s goal. Carolina capitalized as former Leaf Alexei Ponikarovsky took a tape-to-tape pass in the crease from Eric Staal to score his seventh of the season at 18:06. Staal now has six points in his past four games and has only been held pointless in one game this month.

Eight of the past 10 goals scored against the Leafs have been on the power play while Carolina has converted on four of its past 12 opportunities.

Despite falling to 1-6-1 since taking over as coach, Carolina’s Kirk Muller remained upbeat after the loss as he explained why the power play seems to be turning the corner. “Sometimes when you’re not winning you press things and we we’re really forcing the power play. I was telling them too slow things down, you have two minutes to score, not 30 seconds and have the confidence that you can set up plays and you will get your goals.”

Ward was the reason the Hurricanes had something to show for their night. He finished with 36 saves on a night when his team was outshot by exactly a 2-on-1 margin — 38-19. Ward was particularly strong in the second period where he made several tough saves. He denied Phil Kessel’s attempt to go five-hole from 10 feet and stopped Matt Frattin’s individual effort in which he deked around Jamie McBain. Ward also came up big again on Bozak’s backhand chance in the slot and also on a point-blank opportunity by David Steckel.

“Wardo played well, I thought he was our best player, and he kept us in it,” Staal said. “He’s he is one of those guys that puts a lot of pressure on himself, it’s been a tough year, not only for him but for a lot of people here, it was a tough one in the end there, they got a bounce in front of the net and ended the game.”

While Toronto peppered Ward with shots, the Leafs also gave away the puck 22 times in a game that featured sloppy play from both sides.

James Reimer was tested sparingly and made 18 saves for his first win since returning from a concussion sustained Oct. 22 against Montreal. Chad LaRose provided the toughest tests for the second-year goaltender, forcing Reimer to come up big on a shorthanded rush in the third period and prior to that, on a wraparound attempt in the dying seconds of the second period.

The ‘Canes return home on Thursday to host Vancouver after a 1-2-1 road trip. The Leafs visit Buffalo on Friday for the first meeting of the season between the Northeast Division rivals, then return home for a Saturday night showdown against Vancouver.

“If we’re feeling pressure the second week of December, we’re in a lot of trouble,” Wilson said of the schedule. “There’s no pressure or anything like that. Our guys had a very professional approach to the game tonight — you wouldn’t know that we were one of the youngest teams in the League how poised we were right through the whole game.”

Apparently we can no longer win, buh.

• Wins: 13
• losses: 15
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 29

recap.

Saturday, 12.10.2011 / 1:47 PM
Dennis Wideman had the greatest night of his NHL career on Friday. Just how great it was depends on whom you ask.

The official postgame scoresheet said the veteran defenseman scored three power-play goals for the first hat trick of his NHL career and assisted on another extra-man goal by Nicklas Backstrom as the Washington Capitals beat Toronto 4-2 for their third win in four games.

Wideman didn’t dispute that he had four points, but he contended that the third goal isn’t his.

“The third one went in off Brooskie [Brooks Laich]. I’m pretty sure that one’s going to come back,” Wideman said after the first multigoal performance of his 481-game NHL career. He set off a cascade of hats onto the ice when his screened slapper from the left point beat James Reimer with 1:19 left in regulation.

For his part, a laughing Laich wouldn’t say whether Wideman’s shot hit him.

“Don’t want to talk about that,” he said.

The NHL agreed a day later, switching the goal from Wideman to Laich and taking away what would have been the first hat trick by a Washington defenseman since Sergei Gonchar had one on Jan. 4, 2000, and just the third in the regular season by a Caps blueliner since the team entered the NHL in 1974.

Either way, it was the night of a lifetime for Wideman.

“Dennis is a smart player and he knows when to pass and when to shoot and he was bang on tonight with it,” said Caps coach Dale Hunter, who is now 3-3-0 in his NHL coaching career. “It’s all decisions to make for a good power play. You have to read the defense just like a quarterback does. So he shot some and he passed some, great decisions by him.”

The Caps (15-12-1) came into the game with the NHL’s 22nd-ranked power play at 15.2 percent and mired in a 3-for-51 slump, but took advantage of a Toronto penalty-killing unit that was 28th at 76.0 percent to win for the third time in four games.

Phil Kessel and Cody Franson scored for the Maple Leafs (15-11-3), who lost for the second straight game; they allowed six power-play goals on 10 tries in the back-to-back losses.

“We kind of shot ourselves in the foot tonight,” Reimer said. “I thought we really out played them. We just took a few too many penalties.”

The Caps appeared to be in control after Wideman’s perfect pass from the top of the right circle found Backstrom in front for an easy tap-in at 18:50 of the second period with one second left on a 5-on-3 advantage for a 3-1 lead.

“We were working it around pretty good,” Wideman said. “I had some opportunities on the 5-on-3 and I got that pass in the slot, I was thinking I could maybe get one, and then I saw Nicky open on the back door and I had to give it to him.”

But after the Leafs killed off an interference penalty to John-Michael Liles midway through the third period, they made it a one-goal game with 6:44 remaining in regulation when Cody Franson barely kept the puck in at the right point and slung a wrister at the net. The shot went through traffic and past a screened Tomas Vokoun, who finished with 26 saves.

However, Joey Crabb accidentally high-sticked John Carlson with 2:14 remaining, and the Caps answered with their fourth power-play goal in just six chances. It was Washington’s first game with four power-play goals since an 8-2 win against Philadelphia on Dec. 5, 2009.

But Wideman insisted — correctly, as it turned out — that the goal wasn’t his.

“I’ve never had one before. Still haven’t had one,” he said after the game when asked about getting his first hat trick.

Washington opened the scoring at 12:33 of the opening period on its first power play of the night. With rookie Jake Gardiner in the box for slashing, Wideman ripped a wrister from well inside the right circle past Reimer for his fourth goal of the season and first since Nov. 1.

It became 2-0 at 1:49 of the second period, 11 seconds after the Leafs were penalized for having too many men on the ice, when Wideman wound up for a straightaway 50-foot slapper that went through traffic and past Reimer.

Kessel regained a share of the NHL’s goal-scoring lead at 12:52 when he wristed a rebound off Vokoun and into the net for his 18th goal, tying him with Ottawa’s Milan Michalek for the most in the League.

Leafs coach Ron Wilson said the reason for the loss was simple.

“Five-on-five, I thought we controlled and at times dominated the game,” Wilson said. “We didn’t have much puck luck the way some of the things bounced around the net — but bad penalties, undisciplined penalties did us in tonight, simple as that.”

no words.

• Wins: 13
• losses: 14
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 29

recap.

Clarkson’s OT goal lifts Devils past Leafs

Wednesday, 12.07.2011 / 12:03 AM

TORONTO — The New Jersey Devils snapped a four-game losing streak with a 3-2 overtime victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre on Tuesday evening, and it was the hometown kid — David Clarkson — providing the heroics with his second of two goals on the night.

Midway through the overtime period, Dainius Zubrus came into the Leafs’ zone on what seemed to be a harmless rush but wheeled around at the half boards and sent a cross-ice pass to an unmarked Clarkson, who was heading to the net. Clarkson made no mistake, beating James Reimer for his ninth of the season.

“It’s a win we needed. When you come home, you get that feeling,” said Clarkson, who ended what had been a seven-game scoring drought. “I don’t know what it is, but I love playing back here in Toronto. Coming back to my family, it’s one of those games where you get that little bit of jump in your step. I had a lot of tickets tonight, a lot of people here. It went pretty quiet in here when that went in. I had no idea it went in myself. I was just waiting for someone else to celebrate first, but it’s a great feeling. Zubrus made a great pass and Marty (Brodeur) played unbelievable for us tonight.”

In fact, Clarkson could have ended the game late in the third period had it not been for a terrific save by Reimer.

Martin Brodeur had one of his better outings of the season, stopping 29 shots for the Devils for his first victory since Nov. 23 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

“It’s a win,” said Brodeur, who gave up three goals in the first 8:17 on Friday in Minnesota before being replaced in his last outing. “I’ve played a couple of good games. We needed to have a good performance. It’s been a rough ride for us on the road lately, and we’ve been on the road a lot also, so it’s kind of nice to finish it off on a good note.”

The Leafs, who were playing the second of back-to-back games, headed into the third period down 2-1, but a goal early in the third by first-year forward Matt Frattin tied the game. It was a good solo effort by the youngster, playing the puck off the boards and then outmuscling New Jersey defenseman Adam Larsson before firing a shot to the far side just over the pad of Brodeur. Frattin has points in back to back games for the first time in his brief 25-game career.

NHL scoring leader Phil Kessel banged in a loose puck in the crease at 11:29 of the second period to get the Leafs on the board as they cut a 2-0 deficit in half. It was his 17th goal of the season. The goal came on the Leafs’ 14th shot, the first time they took the lead in that department all night. Luke Schenn started the play by bringing the puck to the Devils’ blue line and making a quick pass to his left, finding Joffrey Lupul and narrowly avoiding being hit in the process. Lupul raced to towards Brodeur and from the side of the net flipped the puck into the blue paint. A well-covered Kessel managed to get his stick on the puck to make it 2-1.

Brodeur came up big in the first minute of the second, stoning Philippe Dupuis as he broke in alone shorthanded, one of 13 stops in the second period. Meanwhile, his squad only managed only five shots.

New Jersey scored on their first two chances with the man advantage in the opening period — not bad for a team that entered Tuesday’s game ranked 27th in the NHL on the power play.

With defenseman John-Michael Liles in the box for high sticking at 3:09, the Devils struck with just six seconds left in the man advantage. Ilya Kovalchuk unleashed a laser beam from the top of the faceoff circle to the right of the Leafs’ net and beat Reimer to the short side. Petr Sykora drew the first assist and rookie Adam Henrique extended his point streak to six games with the second assist.

Just before the midpoint of the period, the Devils went up 2-0 with Tim Connolly off for slashing. Clarkson scored his eighth, sweeping the puck past a helpless Reimer after Devils captain Zach Parise found Clarkson wide open at the top of the crease. Patrik Elias also assisted on the play.

“It’s nice for him,” Brodeur said of Clarkson’s performance in his native city. “Clarkie is a really fun guy to be around. Games in Toronto mean a lot to him and so for him to get the game-winner in overtime, and to get another goal, means a lot to him. He played well, he got bumped a few times, got hit hard, but he got up and competed really well.”

So did the rest of his teammates, who finally got things going on the power play.

“It looked nice tonight didn’t it?” Parise said. “Something clicked. We’ve been watching a lot of video on what we can do better. The last few games, it’s been good. Tonight we were able to capitalize. We’ve had those exact same plays before and they just haven’t gone in.”

Schenn pointed to Toronto’s inability to kill off the first two penalties one of the key factors in the outcome of the games.

“It’s not the end result we wanted,” he said. “We got off to a pretty bad start and our penalty kill wasn’t great off the start and it put us behind the 8-ball, but we fought hard and I don’t think the guys left anything in the tank. We earned the one point and we will take it, but it’s always better to have two.”

The Leafs managed just one shot on goal through the first 12:30 until Kessel won a footrace to the net and went to the forehand on Brodeur. The 39-year-old goaltender came up with a spectacular pad save to keep the Devils up 2-0. Toronto could only muster four shots through the first 20 minutes.

“It (to face so few shots in the first) was kind of hard especially since it was a bounce-back game for me after the last two starts, but I was faced with a breakaway and I was happy to make that save,” Brodeur said. “He stayed with it and knocked it out of midair and I got a little lucky finally, so I was kind of happy about that.”

New Jersey continues its road trip Thursday at Ottawa, while Toronto visits Washington on Friday.

really, we can’t beat these tools.

• Wins: 13
• losses:
  13
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 29

. Recap.

Bruins spoil Reimer’s return with 4-1 win
Sunday, 12.04.2011 / 12:33 AM
BOSTON – Even the return of No. 1 goaltender James Reimer couldn’t help the Toronto Maple Leafs reverse their recent fortune against the Boston Bruins.

Reimer, who’d been out with concussion-like symptoms, made his first start since October 22 and looked sharp with 26 saves.

However, four shots got past him, and Boston backup goaltender Tuukka Rask took advantage of his only start of the week with 21 saves as the Bruins improved to 4-0-0 against the Leafs with a 4-1 win at the TD Garden.

The Bruins are now 13-0-1 since the start of November and lead the Leafs by three points in the Northeast Division. They have outscored Toronto 23-6 in the four games.

“It was good to get back in there, but it wasn’t exactly the result we were looking for, or I was looking for,” Reimer said. “I thought we played pretty well as a team. I thought we had a lot of good chances. The way I see it, Rask outplayed me today. That frustrates me more than anything. … But I thought the guys fought hard, they blocked a lot of shots for me, they worked their butts off.”

If the Leafs worked their butts off, the Bruins did so much more. During the third period, when they extended to a 4-1 lead from 2-1 up at the second intermission, the Bruins outshot Toronto 11-4. During one stretch that ended with a Leafs icing and a timeout, Boston pinned the Leafs in their own zone for more than two minutes with the line of David Krejci, Nathan Horton and Milan Lucic doing work down low and the defensive pair of Joe Corvo and Andrew Ference keeping the puck in at the points and along the walls.

“It was a real good shift. I thought they did a great job,” Bruins coach Claude Julien said. “David eventually came off as the third man high and we were able to put a fresh guy [Patrice Bergeron] out there and sustain the pressure. That was a real good shift for us in the third period. (Horton) and (Lucic) are such strong individuals that they’re hard to knock off the puck. When they feel like they want to protect the puck and they want to be strong on it, we can certainly spend a lot of time in the offensive zone playing that way.”

Chris Kelly had given the Bruins the lead with 6:49 left in the second period. Johnny Boychuk’s blast from the high slot beat Reimer for an insurance goal 3:06 into the third. Horton, who along with Lucic and Krejci enjoyed a two-point night, provided the final margin with a goal with 5:34 remaining in regulation.

The Bruins’ defensive effort in front of Rask included keeping NHL leading scorer Phil Kessel off the scoresheet and limiting him to just five shots on net. Rask snuffed out Kessel’s lone Grade-A scoring chance – a second-period breakaway when the game was still just 2-1.

“The puck was kind of bobbling a bit. [Our defenseman] was doing a pretty good job skating in between and taking that passing lane away, so I had a good chance to challenge him a little bit,” Rask said. “He couldn’t get a real good shot off that, but it hit my stick or something I guess.”

Boston, which entered the game with the sixth-best home penalty kill in the League, also managed to stifle Toronto’s streaking power play. The Leafs had scored at least one power-play goal in eight straight games before getting shut out on four opportunities by the Bruins.

“They did a pretty good job on our power play. We took some ill-advised shots,” Toronto coach Ron Wilson said about the struggles of his second-ranked power play. “They rushed us into some things that we didn’t want to do. But if we had scored one goal on the power play it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

Julien said his team stuck to the game plan to keep the Leafs from gaining the special-teams edge.

“We talked about being very disciplined tonight. Those calls that were made — I’m not saying they were bad calls, but they were really borderline and they chose to call those, so I can’t criticize our team for lacking discipline,” he said. “But our PK came out there and did a great job and Tuukka made the saves when he had to. We put a lot of pressure up the ice and didn’t make it easy for them to enter our zone.”

Once winners of 10 in a row, the Bruins have now bounced back since their shootout loss to Detroit last Friday with three straight victories, including their home-and-home sweep of the Leafs.

“It’s a great feeling, it’s so much fun,” Krejci said. “There is nothing better than that, we are having fun. Everything is going our way right now.”

2nd time the leafs took a hammering from Boston. I’m gonna sell them for a model that actually knows how to beat boston, k? lol.

• Wins: 13
• losses: 12
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 29

. Recap:

Bruins close out brilliant November by beating Leafs
Wednesday, 11.30.2011 / 9:59 PM
TORONTO — The Boston Bruins closed out a November to remember by beating the Toronto Maple Leafs 6-3 on Wednesday night to finish the month undefeated in regulation.

Milan Lucic scored twice and David Krejci had a goal and a pair of assists for the Bruins. Tim Thomas stopped 37 shots for his 12th win of the season as Boston completed the month with a 12-0-1 record — only a shootout loss to Detroit on Nov. 25 kept the Bruins from a perfect month.

The Bruins broke a 2-2 tie at 15:30 of the second period when captain Zdeno Chara zipped a 15-footer to the short side past Jonas Gustavsson. Krejci set up Chara with a tape-to-tape pass, and Chara finished for his fifth of the season. He has goals in back-to-back games for the first time this season.

Benoit Pouliot scored 3:03 into the third period to give the Bruins a 4-2 lead. Pouliot went top shelf with his shot from the right circle after a passout from behind the net by Joe Corvo.

Matt Frattin got the Leafs within a goal at the six-minute mark when his shot from near the goal line to the right of Thomas went into the net off the goaltender. But Lucic finished off a feed from Krejci with 4:39 left in regulation, and Brad Marchand hit the empty net as Boston beat Toronto for the third time this month, outscoring the Leafs 19-4 in the process.

The Bruins went up 2-1 at 3:33 of the second period when Krejci put home the rebound of Nathan Horton’s shot. Gustavsson made the initial save off Horton’s soft backhander but John-Michael Liles and Tyler Bozak failed to clear Krejci from the crease, leaving him free to poke the loose puck into the net for his fourth of the season.

The Leafs got even at 7:00 on a 2-on-1 break, as Joffrey Lupul fired Phil Kessel’s pass behind Thomas for his 12th of the season. Lupul extended his point streak to seven games and finished November with 18 points in 13 games. Kessel, who leads the NHL in points, had failed to register a point against Boston this season until setting up Lupul.

Toronto opened the scoring at 7:29 of the opening period when Mikhail Grabovski finished off a nifty passing play by beating Thomas. Carl Gunnarsson started the play with a long lead pass to Clarke MacArthur at the blue line. MacArthur found a charging Grabovski with a pinpoint cross-ice pass, and Grabovski outskated Andrew Ference before beating Thomas for his sixth goal of the season and first since returning to the lineup after a five-game absence.

Boston tied the game at 15:08 when Lucic wired his ninth past an outstretched Gustavsson just as the first of back-to-back Leaf penalties expired. Lucic snapped an eight-game goal drought, his longest of the season.

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hey, 3 in a row? hot shit!

• Wins: 13
• losses: 11
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 29

. Now, the recap!

Ducks’ woes continue in loss to Leafs
Monday, 11.28.2011 / 1:00 AM
ANAHEIM, Calif. – The Toronto Maple Leafs don’t come to Southern California often, but they certainly look right at home at the Honda Center.

Tyler Bozak scored twice and Joffrey Lupul had two assists in his return to Anaheim as Toronto neatly ended a four-game road trip with a 5-2 victory against the Ducks on Sunday night.

The Maple Leafs finished the trip 3-1. They have won four of their past five games to jump back into the Northeast Division lead and can enjoy their extra night’s stay in Orange County, where Lupul maintains a residence in nearby Newport Beach.

“I’m on my way there right now,” he said.

Lupul was satisfied because, “Obviously it’s a big trip for us, and it’s nice to have three big wins. We were pretty solid tonight. It’s been a lot of travel, kind of all the way down the south coast swing. We were strong all the way through the third period, so that’s a good sign.”

It was only Toronto’s fourth appearance in Anaheim in the past 13 years. But it was the second time in three years that Toronto has come into Anaheim and extended the Ducks’ miseries.

Toronto notably beat the host Ducks to end an eight-game winless streak to start the 2009-10 season.
Sunday’s victory extended Anaheim’s winless streak to seven games (0-6-1). The Ducks fell to 2-12-4 over their past 18 games, and those two victories have come over a five-week span.

Lupul, who has voiced his displeasure over his trade from Anaheim to Toronto in February, downplayed his return, but obviously he’s familiar with the Ducks and their big line of Ryan Getzlaf, Corey Perry and Bobby Ryan, who finished a combined minus-6.

“We knew it would be a tough night tonight because we were going to go against Getzlaf, Perry and Bobby all night,” Lupul said. “We were prepared to do the job defensively and wait for our chances and we got them and made them count.”

Bozak scored on a putback off a pretty rush just 47 seconds into the third. Perry got Anaheim to 4-2 when he walked out from the corner and roofed a shot over Jonas Gustavsson at 5:38 but the Ducks rallied short.

Toronto improved to 9-0 when leading after the third period thanks to a late third penalty kill. It also fended off a 6-on-5 advantage in the final 90 seconds.

“Special teams got the job done,” Toronto coach Ron Wilson said. “And I thought we skated really well.
“We’re pretty comfortable. We know what we have to do going into the third period. We’re getting better at it.”

Toronto struck quickly in the first with goals by Bozak and Clarke MacArthur in a 19-second span for a 2-1 lead.

MacArthur beat Jonas Hiller on a slap shot from the left side that appeared to be deflected by Luca Sbisa at 14:29. Tim Connolly made the play possible when he took the puck from Toni Lydman near the blue line to create the turnover.

Bozak tapped in a nice backhand pass in the crease by John-Michael Liles for a power play goal at 14:10, the seventh straight game Toronto has scored with the advantage.

“It was big,” Lupul said of his team’s response to the 1-0 deficit. “After playing here and playing against Getzlaf and Perry and those guys, I know when they start to get some confidence at the start of the game and get rolling, they’re going to be a tough line to contain. They scored and then we came right back on the power play and scored. That kind of settled things down a little bit.”

Toronto held Anaheim to seven shots in the second period and was rewarded with a 3-1 lead thanks to an opportunistic play.

The Maple Leafs picked off Cam Fowler’s pass in the neutral zone and hemmed in Anaheim for a long sequence that ended with Joey Crabb deflecting Luke Schenn’s shot at 2:36.

Anaheim played with the puck for much of the last five minutes of the second but couldn’t generate many quality chances.

It was the same story for the Ducks, who are one loss away from equaling the franchise record eight-game losing streak last set in 2005.

The frustration was worn on the face of coach Randy Carlyle after he watched his team continue to have issues in its own end.

“We just seem to be dead between the ears,” Carlyle said. “We’re not thinking. We’re not reading. Then it seems we pile on extra work for ourselves from our lack of execution by making a pass to a guy who is covered or an ill-advised pass where the opposition has a player in a position to block the pass that we make. It turns into defensive zone coverage for 35-40 seconds. It’s mind boggling some of the plays we’re trying to make.”

Anaheim struck first with a power play goal by Francois Beauchemin. Teemu Selanne carried the puck behind the net and drew defenders to him before he found Beauchemin for a wrist shot from the high slot as Devante Smith-Pelly screened Gustavsson.

Mikhail Grabovski returned to the lineup after he missed five games with a lower body injury and Wilson said he gave them added speed.

The Maple Leafs recalled defenseman Keith Aulie and scratched David Steckel and Carl Gunnarsson with finger injuries.

Wilson said Gunnarsson probably could have played, but he wanted to wait until next week.

.

Hey, we can win two in a row?awesome! even if it is a shootout win.

• Wins: 12
• losses: 11
• shootout wins: 3
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 27

. Here’s the recap.

Leafs Beat Stars in 4-3 in shootout
Saturday, 11.26.2011 / 12:28 AM
DALLAS — Not all wins are pretty. But the Toronto Maple Leafs were more than happy to leave Dallas with two points on a night when they weren’t the best team on the ice for much of the night.

Joffrey Lupul scored in the third round of the shootout to give the Leafs a 4-3 victory against the Dallas Stars before the first sellout crowd of the season at American Airlines Center.

“It was a good win for us,” Lupul said. “We didn’t play that well in the second period, we let them back in the game, but we played really well in the third period and it was a hard-fought game right to the end.”

After the first four shooters failed to score in the tiebreaker, Lupul zipped a forehand shot past Kari Lehtonen. Leafs goaltender Jonas Gustavsson then denied Mike Ribeiro’s backhander for the win. Ribeiro deked Gustavsson, but the big goaltender got just enough of the shot with his pad to keep it from crossing the goal line.

“It was [a total team effort],” Toronto coach Ron Wilson said. “We lost a couple of guys in the second period and the bench got kind of short. But we had to weather a couple of storms. [Gustavsson] obviously came up big in the third period in a few of those situations. Then, [Gustavsson] came up big again in the shootout against some guys that are pretty good.”

The Stars outshot Dallas 14-6 in the third and controlled play for lengthy stretches, but flew to Phoenix for Saturday’s game against the Coyotes with only one point.

“We worked hard,” forward Radek Dvorak said. “It’s too bad we came up with just one point, but it shows that we can play the whole 60 minutes. If you want to keep putting points on the board and if you want to play our game, you have to work hard and we did that.”

Dallas took an early 1-0 lead when Eric Nystrom scored his sixth of the season, beating Gustavsson on his glove side with a 20-foot wrister 4:03 into the game. The sequence began when Jamie Benn dug a puck out along the right boards before laying it off to Michael Ryder, who got the primary assist.

Toronto got even at 10:55 when Joey Crabb fired home the rebound of Dion Phaneuf’s blue-line blast for the equalizer.

The visitors took their first lead of the evening at 14:53 when Phaneuf blistered a 55-foot power-play slap shot that trickled over the goal line for his third tally of the season. Lehtonen appeared to have stopped Phaneuf’s blast from the right point, which struck the Dallas netminder between his right arm and pad, but the puck came out and went over the line.

Nystrom tied it for a second time at 4:38 of the second period, capping a quick sequence with his seventh goal of the season, a wrister that beat Gustavsson to his right. Benn got his second assist of the night by feeding Radek Dvorak who set Nystrom up for the goal.

It was the third multiple-goal game of Nystrom’s career. The other two came during his time in Calgary and all three performances have come against Canadian teams.

The Leafs took a 3-2 lead at 6:55 of the final period when Clarke MacArthur scored his eighth of the season when a pass from Tim Connolly deflected off his left skate and ended up in the back of the net. But the Stars answered at 12:47 when Dvorak scored for the second time as a Star, beating Gustavsson top shelf on the left side with a 20-foot wrister after a solid pass from Mike Ribeiro.

“I don’t know what you can say about that line [that Nystrom and Dvorak play on],” Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan said. “They bring it every night. They have passion, they skate and they work. They’re all in every night and they’re a real effective group for us and they help us a ton. Dvorak’s goal was a big goal for us.”

Gustavsson stopped 26 of the 29 shots he faced while Lehtonen faced 23 shots from the Leafs, stopping 20.

Wilson specifically singled out two members of his defensive core for the solid performances they turned in against Dallas.

“Luke [Schenn] easily played his best game of the season and Jake Gardiner was right there too, skating the puck out of a lot of trouble. Those guys had a great game,” Wilson said.

The Stars’ improved play, a holiday weekend and a rare visit from the Leafs helped the Stars fill the building.

“That was a lot of fun,” Nystrom said. “It was a great atmosphere in there. It’s fun playing against a team like this. They have a lot of fans in the building, and they have a lot of skill up front. It’s a nice change from the monotony of the schedule.

“When it comes down to a shootout it’s chance, and those you kind of take with a grain of salt. We played really hard tonight, we did a lot of good things, and we have to continue doing that.”.

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back and forth it goes. lose, win, lose, win. nuff said.

• Wins: 11
• losses: 11
• shootout wins: 2
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 25

. The recap.

Leafs cruise to 7-1 win over Lightning
Wednesday, 11.23.2011 / 12:24 AM
TAMPA — There’s nothing like an early goal to get a team going, especially on the road. Scoring in the first minute against the Tampa Bay Lightning did wonders for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Clarke MacArthur’s goal 41 seconds into the game triggered a three-goal first period and Tyler Bozak scored twice as the Leafs blitzed the Lightning 7-1 on Tuesday night.

MacArthur, returning to the lineup after missing three games with an upper-body injury, gave Toronto a quick lead by redirecting rookie defenseman Jake Gardiner’s shot from the blue line past Lightning goaltender Dwayne Roloson for his seventh goal of the season.

“Scoring the first goal on the first shift got us in the right frame of mind,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said.

The Lightning (9-9-2) got even after allowing the first goal for the 13th time in 20 games played this season when Vincent Lecavalier converted on Tampa Bay’s second power-play opportunity of the game at 8:38. He beat Jonas Gustavsson on the short side to break an 0-for-10 power-play skid for the Lightning.

But Tim Connolly put Toronto (12-8-2) ahead to stay by beating Roloson on a deflection for a power-play goal at 17:56 with Victor Hedman serving a double minor for high sticking. Pavel Kubina joined Hedman in the box at 18:44 when he was called for interference, and Bozak got his first of the game by firing home a rebound with 16 seconds left in the period.

“Our power play did a great job tonight,” Wilson said. “We had two power-play goals and probably could have had a couple more.”

In the other locker room, Lightning coach Guy Boucher was upset with the penalties that led to the two power-play goals, and with his team’s inconsistency.
“Stupid penalties,” Boucher said. “We have to stay out of the box. Our attitude in the face of adversity wasn’t good. Right now, we’re like a leaky ceiling. When you patch one hole then you run over to the other hole that’s leaking and then you go back to the first hole that’s leaking again, and that’s what we have. We have to become consistent.

“The great thing about the game being over is that every moment after the game is a moment to change things.”

Rookie center Joe Colborne scored his first NHL goal at 17:45 of the second period, and Toronto put the game away with third-period goals by Bozak, Joffrey Lupul and Joey Crabb. Bozak’s goal came after Roloson’s pass behind the net landed right on his stick — the second time in as many games that a misplay by the 42-year-old goaltender wound up in the Lightning’s net.

“I was hoping he would fling it back,” Bozak said. “Then I just got lucky and had an open net.”

Boucher lifted Roloson after Lupul ripped a wrister from the top of the right circle past him at 4:28 of the third period — Toronto’s sixth goal on 21 shots. Crabb finished the scoring against Mathieu Garon.

Frattin and Gardiner both had a pair of assists. Gustavsson stopped 27 of 28 shots for his sixth win of the season, helping to disappoint a sellout crowd of 19,204 at the St. Pete Times Forum, which saw the Lightning allow seven goals at home for the second time this season and turn in a second consecutive sub-par effort after snapping a six-game home winning streak.

The Lightning wrapped up a three-game homestand in which they went 1-2-0.

“We’re just not as consistent as we want to be,” Lecavalier said. “To be a playoff team, you’ve got to be consistent and that’s something we have to get better at.”

The Leafs, who have another two games remaining in their four-game road trip, scored seven goals for the second time in three days. They beat the Washington Capitals 7-1 at home last Saturday.

Wilson said the Leafs succeeded in pushing the tempo against a team that likes to trap.

“We wanted to push the pace so we wouldn’t have to face that 1-3-1,” Wilson said. “I thought we were really effective at doing that.”

Um, apparently we can’t win 2 in a row. lol.

• Wins: 10
• losses: 11
• shootout wins: 2
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 23

. and now, the recap.

Skinner scores in third as Canes edge Leafs
Sunday, 11.20.2011 / 9:04 PM
RALEIGH, N.C. — An air of tension has hung over the Carolina Hurricanes in recent weeks as the team has sunk to the lower reaches of the Eastern Conference standings. So when they beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 3-2 on Sunday night, the reactions ranged from cautious optimism to a bit of gallows humor.

“I get to get on the plane,” said coach Paul Maurice, referring to the Hurricanes’ flight to Philadelphia for Monday night’s game. “We’ll go from there. Just try to get on the plane, don’t assume anything.”

Maurice has been on the hot seat lately as the Hurricanes have fallen to 14th in the East, but a hard-fought win over the Leafs gave the coach and the team some momentary relief.

Jeff Skinner scored the decisive goal in the third period to seal a win that looked in doubt twice down the stretch. Phil Kessel scored both Toronto goals, each time cutting the Hurricanes’ lead to one. Kessel leads the NHL with 16 goals and 29 points.

Skinner finished with a goal and an assist, while Eric Staal added two helpers.

“Everyone (in the room) wants to win,” Skinner said. “That’s the biggest pressure — the pressure you put on yourself, especially when you’re going through something like we’ve been going through the last few games. It’s not fun.”

The Hurricanes had lost back-to-back games leading up to Sunday’s win. Wednesday night’s 4-0 loss at Montreal left general manager Jim Rutherford giving his coach only lukewarm support. A much better effort in a 1-0 home loss to Buffalo on Friday gave the Hurricanes a bit of hope.

“It was hard to keep (our momentum) after our last one,” Maurice said. “We knew we had played a solid game, but you have to have something good come from that.”

The Maple Leafs (11-8-2), playing the second of back-to-back games, didn’t have much jump for most of the night. The injury-ravaged Toronto roster was missing seven regulars.

With the Hurricanes (7-11-3) clinging to a 2-1 lead with less than seven minutes remaining, Carolina defenseman Bryan Allen sprung Staal on a breakaway. Toronto goaltender Ben Scrivens stopped him, but Skinner was there to finish the rebound.

“If you’re sitting at 2-1 and both teams have had 10 great chances to score, you’re not feeling very good, but we were really good to that point,” Maurice said. “The guys recognized that and they just continued to try to do that.”

Carolina goaltender Cam Ward, who had lost five of his previous six starts, recorded 23 saves.

Hurricanes defenseman Jay Harrison opened the scoring with 38 seconds remaining the first period. He fired a low wrist shot from the left circle to beat Scrivens for his second goal of the season. Staal also earned an assist.

The Hurricanes pushed the advantage to 2-0 in the second period on Jussi Jokinen’s power-play goal. Carolina defenseman Justin Faulk earned his first NHL point with a nice diagonal pass to Jokinen, whose shot deflected off Leafs defenseman Luke Schenn in front of the net.

“I saw (Chad LaRose) backdoor there,” Jokinen said. “Every time you put a puck to the net, it can go in off your guy or their guy. It was a big goal for us.”

Less than 24 hours after a dominant 7-1 win at Washington, Toronto looked like a tired team. The Leafs gave up 19 second period shots. The Hurricanes held a commanding 29-12 advantage through 40 minutes.

“I thought we were doing fine in the first period,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “I don’t think they had very many scoring chances. But in the second period we didn’t have much energy and we didn’t work smart.”

Toronto showed some life early in the third period. Tim Connolly sent a wrister toward the top shelf, only to have Ward swipe it with his glove. But Kessel finally put Toronto in the scoring column after Carolina’s Alexei Ponikarovsky was sent off for elbowing. Kessel cleaned up the rebound of a Dion Phaneuf slap shot from the high slot at the 4:31 mark.

After Skinner extended the lead to 3-1, Kessel scored again with one minute remaining in regulation, with the extra attacker on for Toronto.

For Carolina, the win is a welcome breather after a 3-9-2 stretch. That’s why Maurice could have a laugh at his tenuous situation.

“Don’t answer your phone and just follow your routine,” he said. “That’s the key at this point.”

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lose three, and come back and deliver one hell of an ass kickin’. Nicely done!

• Wins: 10
• losses: 10
• shootout wins: 2
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 23

. and now, the recap.

Leafs roll over Caps in 7-1 win
Saturday, 11.19.2011 / 10:00 PM
TORONTO — Joffrey Lupul had a goal and three assists to lead a scoring parade as the Toronto Maple Leafs routed the Washington Capitals 7-1 Saturday night at the Air Canada Centre.

The Leafs blew the game open with four goals in the second period, including three on the power play, as they handed the Capitals their third consecutive loss.

Jonas Gustafsson stopped 40 shots — 33 in the final two periods — for his first win since Nov. 2.

Toronto led 2-1 entering the second period, but scored 1:18 after the puck was dropped. With Matt Hendricks in the box for slashing, Lupul parked himself at the edge of the crease and set up Tyler Bozak with a nice backhand flip pass. Bozak’s second goal of the season put the Leafs up by 3-1.

The Caps thought they had pulled within one when Mike Knuble jammed the puck past Gustavsson at 4:35, but the referees ruled that the puck was frozen before crossing the goal line. It was one of several goalmouth scrambles generated by the Capitals in the second. Gustavsson stopped 15 shots in the period, including big saves on Alex Ovechkin and Alexander Semin on a late Washington power play.

Just over a minute after Washington’s non-goal, Toronto’s Phil Kessel scored his League-leading 14th of the season, prompting Washington coach Bruce Boudreau to pull Tomas Vokoun and replace him with Michal Neuvirth. Vokoun allowed four goals on 18 shots in just over 25 minutes.

Toronto made it 5-1 at 17:12 during another power play when Dion Phaneuf sent a pass into the crease to Lupul, who scored his 10th of the season and earned his fourth point of the night. It was the first four-point night for Lupul since Dec. 20, 2008, when he was a member of the Philadelphia Flyers, coincidentally it came against the Capitals. Lupul also matched a career high with three assists.

Cody Franson’s power-play goal at 19:29 capped the outburst. Ex-Capital Dave Steckel added a shorthanded goal in the final minute of regulation.

The victory was extra special for an injury-riddled Leaf team that had lost five of six coming into Saturday. Mike Komisarek (broken arm), Mikhail Grabovski (lower body), Colby Armstrong (ankle sprain), and Matthew Lombardi (upper body) all were out of the lineup, as was starting goaltender James Reimer, who’s been sidelined for four weeks after being hit in the head during a collision with Montreal’s Brian Gionta. Forward Mike Brown also did not suit up.

Due to the injuries, rookie Joe Colborne was called up from the AHL Toronto Marlies. He made an immediate impact by setting up fellow rookie Matt Frattin for his first NHL goal on a lovely cross-ice pass in the Capitals zone at 19:16 of the opening period to break a 1-1 tie.

Tim Connolly opened the scoring at 1:39 of the first period, beating Vokoun with a wrist shot from the faceoff circle to the left of the Capitals net minder. Brooks Laich tied it less than a minute later by taking a drop pass from Jason Chimera and blasting a shot past Gustafsson.

Ovechkin, who entered the game with 14 goals in 12 career games at the Air Canada Centre, matched his season-high with eight shots on goal but was held without a point.

I’ll take that win, and now go enjoy my coffee and doghnuts.

did we leave our ability to play in the toilet? Apparently!

• Wins: 9
• losses: 10
• shootout wins: 2
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 21

. Here’s the recap.

Rinne and Predators beat Leafs 4-1
Friday, 11.18.2011 / 12:40 AM
The Toronto Maple Leafs did almost everything right in Nashville on Thursday night — except win. For that, they can blame Pekka Rinne.

Nashville’s star goaltender made 38 saves and Martin Erat scored twice as the Predators (10-5-3) beat the Leafs 4-1 for their fifth win in seven games.

Sergei Kostitsyn assisted on three of the four goals, matching his career high for points in a game. He and linemates Erat and Mike Fisher are all healthy again after missing time with injuries — and not surprisingly, the Predators are showing more offensive spark.

“We are playing much better than before,” Kostitsyn said. “We have all come back from injury and needed a couple of games to get better.”

The Leafs, making only their fourth trip ever to Bridgestone Arena, lost for the fifth time in six games. They also lost two more players with injuries. Forward Matthew Lombardi, who played just two games last season with the Preds before suffering a season-ending concussion, left the game with an apparent shoulder or arm injury in the second period and did not return. Defenseman Mike Komisarek left early in the third after blocking a shot. With Mikhail Grabovski and Clarke MacArthur lost due to injury in Tuesday’s home loss to Phoenix, the Leafs had just 11 skaters on the bench for much of the final 20 minutes.

Erat gave the Predators a 1-0 lead just 5:48 into the game with his fourth goal in four games, converting Fisher’s pass from the goal line to the right of Ben Scrivens.

John-Michael Liles tied it at 10:36 of the second. With the Maple Leafs on a power play and both teams on a line change, Liles picked up the puck at center ice and drove down the right side before beating Rinne with a wrist shot from the circle.

That was all the offense the Leafs could manage despite outshooting Nashville 39-22.

“That might be the best game we’ve played all season,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “To be honest with you, start to finish, their goalie came up huge.

“He’s one of the best goalies, he was up for the Vezina, but we did our best and he was up to task.”

Nashville regained the lead less than two minutes later when Ryan Suter’s shot from the left side through traffic beat a screened Scrivens. It was his fourth of the season — matching his total in each of the past two seasons.

Suter and defense partner Shea Weber both went plus-4, but said much of the credit for the win belongs to Rinne.

“Tonight was one of those nights where they couldn’t get much going, and we took advantage of some of their turnovers and mistakes,” Suter said. “Everyone is playing better. Everyone is coming back hard and playing hard in the ‘D’ zone, and Pekks is standing on his head for us.”

Erat made it 3-1 at 2:05 of the third by firing a cross-ice pass from Fisher behind Scrivens to complete a 2-on-1 break.

“We are good on the forecheck and are just creating chances,” Erat said. “We are playing good defense against the other team’s top line and then getting pucks to the net.”

After rookie Craig Smith missed his chance at an empty-netter by firing high with the puck in the crease, Matt Halischuk hit the empty net with 23 seconds left to seal the win.

Wilson had no gripe with his team’s performance, especially considering the lack of available bodies.

“The bench was really short by the end of the game but I thought we played really well,” he said. “I thought we dominated most parts of the game. There is nothing you can do, just play on and whoever we bring up or guys who aren’t playing get in the lineup we’ll do our best.”

. Their’s a game being played as I type this so we’ll see what that comes out as when it’s all said and done.

apparently we fail at playing.

• Wins: 9
• losses: 9
• shootout wins: 2
• shootout losses: 1
• points: 21

. recap.

Coyotes keep rolling on road with SO win over Leafs
Tuesday, 11.15.2011 / 11:53 PM
TORONTO — The weather may be nicer in Phoenix, but the Coyotes are just fine right where they are.

Dave Tippett’s club stretched its road win streak to 5 games with a 3-2 shootout win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night.

Shane Doan and Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored in regulation and Patrick O’Sullivan notched the shootout winner. Mike Smith made 35 saves — plus another 2 in the shootout — to post his sixth win in 7 games.

Tippett praised his goaltender, who improved his record to 8-2-3 on the year.

“He’s really embraced the No. 1 goaltender role,” Tippett said. “Smitty has earned the confidence of the team. He’s been a very solid player for us a leader in the dressing room and his play has been as good as anybody in the League up to this point.”

Smith cited goaltending coach Sean Burke as a key factor in his strong start.

“Everyone knows goaltending is mental,” Smith said. “I know I have the physical ability to be a great goaltender in this League, but I’ve struggled with the mental aspect of it throughout my career. I have to find that consistency and Sean’s been very good for me. He’s a guy that played in this League and did very well. Now I’m fortunate to have him on my side.”

Smith’s heroics negated a spirited Toronto comeback in the third period that brought the Leafs back from a 2-0 deficit. Mike Komisarek got Toronto on the board early in the period with his first goal of the year, and Phil Kessel scored his League-leading 13th goal via the power play at 4:41 to tie the game and set the stage for a thrilling finish.

According to Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson, a patient approach keyed the rally.

“The important thing we talked about was we don’t want to go and try to tie the game in the first 4 or 5 minutes and yet we did by keeping things simple, not having the ‘D’ get caught pinching. You have 20 minutes and we were getting plenty of scoring chances in the second period and some shots, we needed a little more traffic and we got it — a little more patience with the puck in the offensive zone.”

After a slow start, Leafs goaltender Ben Scrivens starred late in the game, matching Smith save for save and sending the game to the shootout.

Wilson praised the youngster for keeping his composure.

“I was happy for Scrivs that he buckled down, he didn’t cave, then he came up with a lot of saves as the game went on,” Wilson said. “I think our team’s confidence in him grew as the game went on.”

For his part, Scrivens is getting acclimated to the NHL game, with a 2-2-1 record in the absence of injured number one goaltender James Reimer.

“I’m starting to feel more comfortable and get a bit of confidence,” Scrivens said.

Doan opened the scoring just 1:54 into the game when his counterpart — Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf — made a costly mistake. Phaneuf fell at the Coyotes’ blue line and coughed up the puck, springing Mikkel Boedker and Doan on a 2-on-1 the other way. Doan fired Boedker’s feed past Scrivens for his first goal in 7 games.

Scrivens was shaky on the Coyotes’ second goal, as his giveaway behind the net eventually led to an Oliver Ekman-Larsson floater from the blue line that hit the twine at the 5:18 mark.

Wilson looked to spark his team in the second period, moving Matt Frattin up to the second line with Clarke MacArthur moving down to the third. While the Leafs did come on strong in the latter half of the period, few of their shots got through the tough Coyotes’ defense – most were either blocked or deflected off target. With a 2-0 lead, the Coyotes were content to relieve pressure by chipping the puck out or icing it.

Toronto’s bottom six forwards keyed the comeback early in the third period, as MacArthur and Mikhail Grabovski were forced out of the game with injuries. Matthew Lombardi, David Steckel and Joey Crabb created pressure in the Coyotes’ zone, and Komisarek snuck into the slot to draw the Leafs within one at the 2:08 mark. Under a minute later, Mike Brown drew a cross-checking penalty from Martin Hanzal, setting the stage for Kessel’s tying goal on the power play off the rebound of a Nikolai Kulemin shot.

MacArthur suffered an upper-body injury in the second period and did not return. Grabovski left with a lower body injury in the third after a neutral-zone collision with Hanzal. Wilson had no update on either player following the game.

Despite the loss and the injuries, Phaneuf emphasized the positives.

“I thought it was a real character job by us, especially when your bench gets shortened like that,” Phaneuf said. “We lost a few key guys. I thought we really did a good job to come back and get the point.”

The Coyotes’ recent road streak has been impressive, but it will be put to the test as the Eastern trip continues. Phoenix faces Philadelphia on Thursday, followed by games in Buffalo and Washington.

gettin’ their asses handed to them by the team who’s city I live in, lol. glad I wasn’t out and about that night.

• Wins: 9
• losses: 8
• shootout wins: 2
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 21

. Recap.

Sens spoil Leafs party with 5-2 win
Saturday, 11.12.2011 / 11:12 PM
TORONTO — The more than 19,500 fans inside Air Canada Centre roared for three of their favorite former Leafs who were being honored prior to the annual Hockey Hall of Fame game.

Once the game started Saturday night, they didn’t get many opportunities to bathe their favorite current Leafs in the same type of love.

The Senators spoiled the party here by snapping a five-game winless streak with a 5-2 victory in front of soon-to-be Hall of Fame members Doug Gilmour, Joe Nieuwendyk, Ed Belfour and Mark Howe. Gilmour, Nieuwendyk and Belfour all played in Toronto during their illustrious careers.

“This league is about results and we went and got that tonight,” Ottawa defenseman Chris Phillips said. “It was a big night with the Hall of Fame, and for us to come in on a back-to-back and find some energy to win the last two periods was big for this team.”

Ottawa didn’t look the least bit tired despite the fact that just 24 hours earlier it suffered its fifth straight defeat and played one of its worst games of the season in a 5-1 loss at Buffalo.

Craig Anderson, who was pulled after giving up two goals in the first two and a half minutes of Friday’s game, was sent right back into the nets by coach Paul MacLean. He made the coach look smart by stopping 31 shots for his seventh win of the season and first since Oct. 29.

Nick Foligno scored twice and the Senators got one each from Sergei Gonchar, Zack Smith and Milan Michalek.

Toronto goalie Ben Scrivens made 19 saves in the loss, the Maple Leafs’ third in a row at Air Canada Centre.

“It’s a huge confidence lift when the coach comes to you and says you weren’t very good the night before, we need more out of you, and you respond,” Anderson said. “It’s a huge emotional lift knowing that he’s got confidence in me and that makes my confidence go higher and higher.”

Toronto made it interesting when Joffrey Lupul scored with 2:50 to play in regulation. But, Foligno and Michalek each scored empty-net goals to seal the Senators first win since they beat these same Maple Leafs, 3-2, at Scotiabank Place on Oct. 30.

“We came to compete tonight, came to play,” Foligno said. “That’s the beautiful thing about this game, sometimes you get to play back-to-back, and right the wrong right away.”

The Leafs were guilty of coughing up a 1-0 lead that Tyler Bozak gave them late in the first period, in part because their power play was poor but mostly because they stopped trying to put the pressure on Ottawa.

Inconsistent play is an ongoing problem with Toronto, one captain Dion Phaneuf said comes when a team is trying to “build a winning culture” after years of losing, as the Leafs are attempting now.

“I think we’re on our way there, but we’re still learning and we’re going to have to learn how to win these one-goal games that seem to be slipping away from us,” Phaneuf said. “Not being negative, but when we’re up by a goal we tend to sit back. We’re going to have to learn to keep pushing and to win these kinds of games that we have leads in.”

The Leafs had their chances to step on the Senators. Bozak gave them the lead with his first goal of the season at 17:18 of the first period, but their power play went 0-for-5 with only six shots on goal.

MacLean said his team’s penalty-kill was the difference.

“Jesse (Winchester) did a good job in the faceoff circle, he was outstanding,” MacLean said. “I thought him and (Kaspars) Daugavins as a pair and Erik Condra and Zack Smith as a pair really were outstanding for us as penalty killers. They’ve really worked hard at learning how to do it here in the National Hockey League and it looks like they’ve taken big steps here in the last couple of games.”

The Senators erased Toronto’s 1-0 lead with goals from Gonchar and Foligno in the second period and Smith’s third goal of the season just 48 seconds into the third.

Gonchar scored during a delayed Toronto penalty and Foligno gave the Senators the lead with a 5-on-3 goal with 2:14 to play before the second intermission.

For Foligno, it was sweet revenge. Not long before, he left the ice bleeding after the blade of Philippe Dupuis’ stick caught him in the face, leading to a double-minor penalty and the Senators two-man advantage.

Bozak went to the box two seconds earlier for a holding minor.

Foligno had to start the power play on the bench with the trainers tending to him, but when he was ready he leapt over the boards with his left nostril stuffed with gauze and went right to the middle, where defenseman Erik Karlsson found him with a picture-perfect pass from center ice.

He was coming with so much speed that he easily split Toronto’s defense pair of Mike Komisarek and Jake Gardiner and then wristed a shot through Scrivens’ five-hole for the go-ahead goal.

“The adrenaline was pumping, I wanted to get back out there,” Foligno said. “It was a nice pass by Erik to get me that breakaway and I was just happy to make good on it.”

The Leafs started the third period with a pair of quick and quality chances by Phaneuf in the first 39 seconds. Anderson stopped both shots, and after the second nobody covered for Phaneuf at the point, leading to a 2-on-1 opportunity for the Senators.

Smith cashed in by sending a short-side wrist shot from the left circle past Scrivens.

“We’re going to have to figure out how to push the pace for 60 minutes,” Toronto coach Ron Wilson said, “and develop that kind of instinct to keep pushing the (other) team down.”

Hey, it’s a win, in a shootout! nifty!

• Wins: 9
• losses: 7
• shootout wins: 2
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 21

. No recap was posted for this game.

missed this one. Good thing, apparently. stats:

• Wins: 8
• losses: 7
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 19

the recap:

Panthers rout Leafs 5-1 to end three-game slide
Wednesday, 11.09.2011 / 3:43 PM
TORONTO — For the second straight game the Florida Panthers jumped out to a 3-0 lead. This time they made sure that lead stood up.

Jose Theodore stopped 38 shots and five Panthers scored in a 5-1 defeat of the Toronto Maple Leafs in front of 19,414 at Air Canada Centre.

“The last game was a tough one but the good thing about this team is we have the character to forget about tough situations and just bounce back and that’s what we did tonight,” Theodore said. “We weren’t nervous, we played the same way we started against Tampa but we played for 60 minutes the same way.”

The win came two days after the Panthers led Tampa Bay 3-0 in the second period, only to allow the Lightning to tie the game in regulation and win 4-3 in a shootout.

This time, the Panthers led 3-0 after two periods and sandwiched third-period goals by Sean Bergenheim and Shawn Matthias around Phil Kessel’s 11th of the season for Toronto.

Coach Kevin Dineen liked what he saw from his offense, especially since the top line of Kris Versteeg, Stephen Weiss and Tomas Fleischmann was held off the scoresheet.

“We’ve relied fairly heavily on one group of guys and tonight when that gets spread out it not only makes everybody feel a part of it,” he said. “It makes us more energetic that you’re able to roll those four lines and not worry so much about the matchups.”

Jack Skille scored in the first period for the Panthers, and Marco Sturm and Tomas Kopecky beat Jonas Gustavsson 19 seconds apart in the second as the Panthers broke a string of three consecutive shootout losses. Theodore made 31 saves in the final two periods, including three huge stops in the third on Nikolai Kulemin with the score 4-1 and the Leafs trying to get back in the game.

“They came up with some more pressure at the end there, maybe caught us on our heels a little bit but we did a good job of just taking that pressure and continuing to make smart plays,” Skille said. “Obviously Theo played out of his mind back there and that always helps.”

Theodore stifled a Toronto club that has now lost back-to-back games at home by a combined score of 12-1. Kessel’s goal broke a scoreless drought of 137:59 as the Leafs, who had been near the top of the League in offense this season, have suddenly gone cold. To make matters worse, coach Ron Wilson had to pull his starting goaltender for the second straight game — Gustavsson was replaced by Ben Scrivens after surrendering back-to-back second period goals to give Florida a 3-0 lead.

Afterward, Wilson tried to focus on the positives.

“What I take out of is how well we played in the second and third period,” he said. “Their goalie made a number of big saves and unfortunately we didn’t get a save and that kind of sunk us. We’ve got to shore up our goaltending obviously and play the way we did tonight and more often than not the puck will go in the net. You’re going to win games that you shouldn’t and tonight we probably lost a game that we shouldn’t have.”

With starter James Reimer still sidelined after a collision with Montreal’s Brian Gionta more than two weeks ago, Gustavsson and Scrivens have to step up their play. Forward Joffrey Lupul is confident they are up to the task.

“I know those guys probably aren’t happy with the way they played, but a lot of us aren’t,” Lupul said. “You win as a team and lose as a team. So it kind of goes hand in hand. We all count on each other and we’re not scoring enough goals for them right now.”

see you next game.

This game was horrible, buh!

• Wins: 8
• losses: 6
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 19

. Now, the recap.

Seguin torches Leafs in Bruins’ 7-0 win
Saturday, 11.05.2011 / 9:50 PM
TORONTO — The Stanley Cup hangover may not be over, but the cobwebs are definitely clearing for the Boston Bruins.

Leafs-killer Tyler Seguin notched his first career hat trick and Milan Lucic scored twice as the Boston Bruins steamrolled the Toronto Maple Leafs 7-0 at Air Canada Centre on Saturday night.

Tim Thomas stopped 25 shots to record his first shutout of the season.

With expectations high due to the Maple Leafs hot start, the game was billed as “first vs. worst,” but the defending Stanley Cup champions served notice to the Maple Leafs that the road to the Northeast Division title still leads through Beantown.

For the second time this season, Seguin, 19, dominated the Maple Leafs. Seguin scored 3 goals Saturday, and now has 6 points in 2 games versus Toronto this season. In the process, Seguin overshadowed League-leading scorer Phil Kessel once again, the player he will forever be linked with through the Leafs-Bruins trade of 2009. Kessel was held in check by the Bruins team defense, and is pointless in 2 games against his former team this season.

Seguin opened the scoring on the power play 6:23 into the game on the power play, firing a one-timer past Ben Scrivens off a crisp pass from Rich Peverley. Seguin’s sublime skill was on display early in the second period, as he batted in a deflected puck chest-high on the backhand. The Bruins scored again just 8 seconds later, as Milan Lucic beat Scrivens on a breakaway after taking a great feed from Zdeno Chara.

With the two quick goals, the Bruins took control of the game and never looked back.

While the Maple Leafs held the edge in shots through the majority of the second period, they couldn’t beat Thomas, who looked sharp. With 5 minutes left in the period, Seguin struck for his third of the game, taking a Patrice Bergeron feed on the rush and beating Scrivens high to the short side. Just 14 seconds later, the Bruins struck again as Scrivens kicked a rebound right to David Krejci in the slot who fired into the open net to make it 5-0.The hook mercifully came for Scrivens in his second NHL start after Krejci’s goal, as he was replaced by Jonas Gustavsson.

Milan Lucic scored his second of the game at 5:44 of the third period, off the rush on a feed from Krejci, and Shawn Thornton completed the rout just 28 seconds later when he beat Gustavsson off a scramble in front of the net.

Dion Phaneuf provided the only excitement the third period with a big open ice hit on Chris Kelly, but the captain’s intensity was a lone bright spot for the Maple Leafs on a dismal night.

See you next game.

Welcome to handing out an ass kicking. Very nicely done. I was visiting someone in the hospital during this game, but hey, I like coming home to these types of wins.

• Wins: 8
• losses: 5
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 19

. Have a recap.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Clarke MacArthur scored twice in his 300th career game, providing all the offense needed to make Ben Scrivens a winner in his NHL debut, and the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 4-1 on Thursday night.

Joey Crabb and John-Michael Liles also scored for the fast-starting Maple Leaps. Joffrey Lupul added two assists.

Scrivens stopped 38 shots, including a few early that allowed Toronto to build a 4-0 lead despite playing its second game in two nights.

Phil Kessel, with 10 goals and 10 assists in the team’s first 12 games, was limited to one assist.

Rookie Ryan Johansen scored his third goal of the season for the Blue Jackets.

The Maple Leafs scored four goals on 11 shots against Columbus goalie Steve Mason before he was pulled in the second period.

See you next game.

I caught some of this game. but didn’t catch the end, but hey we won, and that’s all that matters.

• Wins: 7
• losses: 5
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 17

. Here’s the recap.

Lupul’s hat trick leads Leafs past Devils
Wednesday, 11.02.2011 / 11:55 PM
NEWARK, N.J. — Martin Brodeur’s highway-robbery stick save on Phil Kessel in the third period will be played over and over on every highlight show. So, too, will Joffrey Lupul’s three goals on Brodeur in the second period.

Brodeur showed plenty of rust and only a small sampling of his Hall of Fame ways in his first game back from a shoulder injury he suffered nearly three weeks ago. The save on Kessel was spectacular and it gave him confidence that his right shoulder is indeed OK, but it couldn’t erase what had already transpired: Lupul’s hat trick in a span of 6:42 in the second period led Toronto over Brodeur and the Devils 5-3 on Wednesday night at Prudential Center.

Joey Crabb and Mikhail Grabovski also scored for the Maple Leafs. Kessel added to his NHL-leading point total with two assists to give him 20 points in 12 games.

The Leafs move on to play in Columbus on Thursday while the Devils will try to snap a three-game losing streak in Philadelphia with Johan Hedberg in net.

“Anyone, whether it’s Marty Brodeur or not, if they’re coming off an injury and haven’t played for three weeks, you want to test that guy,” Lupul said. “We thought in the first period he did look a little bit shaky like he’d been off for a while. We decided to throw as many pucks as we could at him in the second and it paid off. He seemed to settle in a bit more as the game went on, but definitely when you have a goalie coming back off a layoff like that you want to try to utilize it.”

The Leafs only tested Brodeur with 23 shots on goal, but they created several prime scoring chances off good puck movement and a soft Devils defense that looked far too disjointed at times.

“Marty has worked his butt off to rehab and I didn’t think we did a good job around him, supporting him considering the circumstances,” Devils coach Pete DeBoer said. “We didn’t give up a huge number of shots, but we gave up some quality chances. We left some people unchecked. Three goals should be enough for us to win a game and it wasn’t.”

Toronto coach Ron Wilson didn’t think his team was that much better in certain areas of the game, but he was pleased with how Jonas Gustavsson (19 saves) responded in his seventh straight start and he liked that the players were supporting one another.

“It’s a little harrowing at times,” said Wilson, who hopes No. 1 goaltender James Reimer will be able to start in Columbus. “It’s like you’re in one of those motorcycles and you’re in the sidecar and you have no idea which way the driver is going, but you get to your destination. That’s what it feels like at the end of the game. We make some decisions and other guys have to bail their teammates out. At least we were in good support positions (Wednesday night).”

Asked if that means the Leafs can’t take much out of Wednesday’s game other than the two points, Wilson replied, “No, I’m happy we won. Now we’re starting to get picky on how we win. We’re 8-3-1, started the month off on the right foot on the road, and now we put this behind us to get ready for (Thursday) night.

“Step on their head and climb a little higher, that’s what we’re trying to do right now.”

All Brodeur is trying to do is find some kind of rhythm. He admittedly fought his confidence in the first period and a half Wednesday night because he did not know if he could fully trust his balky right shoulder, which he hurt against Los Angeles on Oct. 13. Ironically, Brodeur finally realized that his shoulder was reacting just fine during the sequence that led to Lupul’s hat-trick goal with 6:47 left in the second period.

“I moved really quick, and that kind of gave me an idea that I was able to push,” Brodeur said. “From there I felt confident and played well.”

He stopped the final nine shots he faced, including all seven in the third period, but the Devils couldn’t get any kind of push going in the final 20 minutes. Toronto held them to five shots on goal while rolling all four lines and three D-pairs.

“We didn’t give up much obviously, but when you’re down two goals you have to keep pressing, keep throwing pucks at the net,” said Patrik Elias, whose power-play goal in the second period was the 93rd of his career, moving him into first place on the franchise’s all-time list. “I don’t know, what we’d have four or five shots, that’s not good enough.”

Neither was Brodeur in the first 40 minutes.

“I didn’t play well at all,” Brodeur said.

The Devils and Leafs traded goals until just before the halfway point of the game. Each time Toronto would take the lead, and New Jersey would have an answer, including twice on the power play.

However, Lupul scored back-to-back goals in less than four minutes to give the Leafs their two-goal cushion heading into the second intermission. He beat Brodeur with a soft shot from the right circle that appeared to tick off Henrik Tallinder’s stick — handcuffing Brodeur, who had the puck go through his left arm and his left side.

“Everyone seemed to leave me and I think my shot went off the defenseman’s stick, and that’s why it fooled him,” Lupul said. “Not the prettiest goal, but all night we were saying he hadn’t played in a long time so we want to get as many pucks to the net as we could. That was just lucky there.”

“Who cares if it hits the stick, it’s not a good goal,” added Brodeur.

Lupul didn’t need much luck on his hat-trick goal. Brodeur stopped Kessel’s shot off the rush from between the circles, but Grabovski gathered the puck and carried it behind the net, eventually feeding Lupul in the slot. Lupul’s first attempt was stopped by Brodeur, but the rebound came right to him and this time he stuffed it past Brodeur.

“It does mean a little bit more,” Lupul said of scoring a hat trick against Brodeur, the NHL’s all-time leader in wins. “I played a ton against this guy when I was in Philly and he seems to always have my number. So, it’s pretty cool to do it against him.”

See you next game.

we blew this one, but the season’s long from over.

• Wins: 6
• losses: 5
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 15

. for your reading pleasure, the recap.

Power play sparks Sens past Leafs

Sunday, 10.30.2011 / 11:54 PM

KANATA, Ont. – The Ottawa Senators are on a six-game winning streak, yet they’re only just beginning to find their identity.

Colin Greening and Chris Neil scored via the man advantage and Kaspars Daugavins added his first career NHL goal as the Sens earned a 3-2 victory against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday night at Scotiabank Place.

“Special teams are going to be big for us all year,” Jason Spezza said. “When you’re a young hockey club, if you can play 5-on-5 even up and win your specialty teams battles, you’re going to win most nights.”

Toronto’s Clarke MacArthur had two goals, and has now tallied four points in the last two nights after netting a goal and an assist during Saturday’s 4-3 win against Pittsburgh.

Ottawa currently has 12 goals on the power play, and leads the League at 31 percent. Greening has contributed a significant amount to the Sens’ success, and is happy with the opportunity to play 5-on-4.

“If they want to (put me in front of the net during the power play), that’s fine,” Greening said. “I’m a big body, I can make it hard for (the other team), I can screen goalies and I can make it hard for them to see the puck. When you have talented shooters like (Milan) Michalek, Spezza and (Sergei) Gonchar … obviously they’re able to shoot around me, which is nice. But I think it works. And as long as they want to put me there, I’ll stay there.”

With the exception of the first goal, the Senators dominated the Leafs for the majority of the game. The Leafs took the lead in the first, when MacArthur wired an easy feed from Mikhail Grabovski past Robin Lehner on the power play at 11:20. But when the Sens knotted things up on Greening’s goal at 16:16 (courtesy of a beautiful outlet pass from David Rundblad), Toronto coach Ron Wilson could sense trouble.

“The first goal they scored against us, we got caught napping,” Wilson said. “That had a big impact on that game. Up to that point, we had a 1-0 lead and I thought we were in pretty good control. We had our forecheck going. A team like Ottawa, they’re no different than us, if they can get a goal like that, it kind of lights the candle, and they played pretty well after that.”

Ottawa pulled ahead in the second on the power play when Erik Karlsson’s slap shot was tipped by Neil at 7:59. The Senators’ defenseman now leads all blueliners with 12 assists and 13 points.

Daugavins made it 3-1 when his wrist shot from just inside the blue line flew past Gustavsson at 7:08 of the third. The 23-year-old, who was recalled from Binghamton on Oct. 24, grinned as he described his first goal.

“I’m pretty excited tonight,” Daugavins said. “To finally get that feeling in my career was pretty awesome. Especially to help the team win, that was pretty nice. I got the puck in the neutral zone from Zack Smith, and I heard him screaming to get the puck to the net because (Bobby) Butler was there. To be honest, I tried to shoot for a rebound, but it went in, so that was fortunate.”

The Leafs pulled back within one when MacArthur banged home a rebound from Grabovski at 9:07. The Leafs would continue to press in the third, but failed to notch the equalizer.

“We just turned it on too late in the game,” MacArthur said. “We’ve got to give them credit; they had good back pressure tonight. In the first two periods, we didn’t make great first passes, and nothing was clicking through the neutral zone. They were log-jamming us. We had some good chances, but you can’t always expect to come back and win games like that.”

MacArthur came close to a hat trick tonight, when he nearly tipped a one-timer from Nikolai Kulemin that skidded across Lehner’s crease for the goaltender’s biggest save of the night. The Ottawa netminder, who made 23 stops in his first start of the season, was quick to deflect any praise towards him.

“I got to give the team a lot of credit because I didn’t have much to do,” Lehner said.

. We’ll do better next time.

and we have another win! stats.

• Wins: 6
• losses: 4
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 15

.And now, the recap.

Kessel’s league-leading 10th leads Leafs over Pens

Saturday, 10.29.2011 / 11:58 PM

TORONTO — Phil Kessel is quickly cementing his status as a folk hero at the Air Canada Centre.

Kessel became the first player in the League to reach double figures in goals when he scored his 10th of the season midway through the third period to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 4-3 victory against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night.

The Leafs improved to 7-2-1, and Kessel’s hot start is a big reason. He snapped the game’s third tie when he beat Brent Johnson at 10:08, finding the net with a quick release after Tim Connolly found his linemate on the rush.

“You could see that whole thing develop,” coach Ron Wilson said. “Phil’s eyes were as big as saucers when he saw the gap. Timmy didn’t even hesitate — he fired it right over with a perfect pass.”

The Leafs have taken a lot of grief for sending two No. 1 picks and a second-rounder to Boston for Kessel two years ago. But with League-leading totals of 10 goals and 18 points, any boos have turned to cheers as the Leafs chase their first playoff berth since 2004.

The injury-riddled Penguins (8-3-2) had their five-game winning streak snapped when they ran out of comebacks. Despite adding Jordan Staal (upper body) to their injury list and playing for the League-leading 13th time in 26 days, the Penguins overcame three one-goal deficits before coming up short.

“It was tough. To come back three times is a lot to ask,” forward Craig Adams said. “To come back a fourth time was too much to ask. We poured it on at the end and had some good chances, but couldn’t get another one past them.”

The Leafs improved to 5-0-1 at the ACC — Toronto, Chicago and Washington are the only teams without a regulation loss at home this season.

Toronto took the lead at 11:31 of the first period when Mikhail Grabovski tipped in a Dion Phaneuf point shot for a power-play goal

The teams went nearly a full period without scoring, then combined for three goals in less than five minutes.

Pittsburgh got even at 10:21 of the second when Matt Cooke snapped a shot past Jonas Gustavsson. Connolly put the Leafs back on top 70 seconds later with a power-play wrister that beat Johnson. But at 15:06, Evgeni Malkin — who was in the penalty box for Toronto’s first two goals — fed Chris Kunitz for a power-play goal that tied the game again.

Clarke MacArthur restored Toronto’s edge at 3:08 in the third off another assist from Phaneuf. But Malkin got the Penguins even for the third time when he picked up a loose puck and beat Gustavsson for a power-play goal at 7:59.

Gustavsson, starting his third game in a row in lieu of the injured James Reimer, stopped 34 shots — including the Penguins onslaught over the final minutes — for his second consecutive win. He’s likely to get his fourth consecutive start when the Leafs visit Ottawa on Sunday night.

“We can see this, he needed to play and because of this injury (to Reimer) he’s looking confident,” Wilson said.

Both teams converted two power-play chances, though Toronto arguably performed better with the man advantage considering Pittsburgh came in best in the League in PP kills.

“The most important thing is that we were able to win the faceoffs,” Wilson said. “We were able to get going real quick — get it down to the front of the net and make things happen. … Tonight it looked really good.”

Despite the absence of Staal and the continuing absence of Sidney Crosby, who has yet to play due to the concussion that has kept him sidelined since early January, the Penguins were making no excuses.

“We weren’t able to play 60 minutes the way we should,” defenseman Kris Letang. “That’s why we didn’t get a win tonight.”

. The points are piling up, folks. See you next game.

We can still win, awesome! stats.

• Wins: 5
• losses: 4
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 13

. Here’s the recap.

Leafs spoil Rangers’ home opener with 4-2 win

Friday, 10.28.2011 / 12:00 AM

NEW YORK — Jonas Gustavsson’s unscheduled start Thursday had all the makings of disaster when he allowed a first-period goal that was so soft that injured goaltender James Reimer could have rested his injured neck comfortably on it.

Dan Girardi’s unscreened wrist shot from about 50 feet away skittered through Gustavsson’s legs to give the Rangers a 1-0 lead just 6:23 into their home opener at Madison Square Garden. Things could’ve been worse, as the Rangers applied relentless pressure and had two goals waived off due to incidental contact with Gustavsson in the crease

Instead of folding, Gustavsson turned in a rock-solid performance the rest of the way, backstopping the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 4-2 victory. The 27-year-old Swede, who allowed six goals on 25 shots in his previous start in this building on Jan. 19, made 28 saves only a few hours after the Leafs placed Reimer on injured reserve due to whiplash.

“We did a lot of good things. It was a good team effort,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. “The one shot, that was a shot the Monster (Gustavsson) should’ve had — then he stopped some ones that he shouldn’t have. I thought after that first goal, the Monster made some big saves for us and kept us going.”

With the Rangers still leading 1-0 in a first period they dominated, Ryan Callahan had a glorious chance to make it a two-goal lead. He had the puck at the right post with Gustavsson sprawled along the ice, but the Monster snared the shot with his catching glove to keep the Northeast Division-leading Leafs within striking distance.

“Saves like that always feel good,” Gustavsson said. “It’s not something you work on, it’s more just reacting out there. Sometimes you stop them and sometimes you don’t, but I got a chance to stop that one. I was trying to cover as much as possible by putting (my glove) as close as possible. He probably still had some room, but it’s less room when you get that close.”

The Rangers were playing their first home game of the season because of renovations taking place on their building. That forced them to play seven road games — including two in Stockholm and four in Western Canada — to start the season. They fed off the energy from their fans right from the start, but the Leafs weathered the storm and responded with one of their best periods of the season in the second.

Matthew Lombardi drew the Leafs even when a bad-angled shot eluded goaltender Henrik Lundqvist at 1:20. That was just the start of the onslaught, and things would have been much worse for the Rangers if not for Lundqvist, who stopped a pair of Phil Kessel breakaways and 15 shots in total during what the Leafs (6-2-1) called their best period of the season.

“I think it was,” said Clarke MacArthur, whose first goal of the season in the third period turned out to be the winner. “I don’t remember a minute in our own end that period. We rolled the lines pretty good. I thought we were moving pucks up and that’s how we have to play.”

The Leafs broke open the tie game with three straight goals to start the third period from Joffrey Lupul (his fifth of the season), MacArthur and Mike Brown.

Lupul jammed a rebound under Lundqvist after the goaltender couldn’t control a long shot from defenseman Jake Gardiner. That goal at 2:11 was followed by MacArthur’s first of the season less than five minutes later. MacArthur fired a long shot to the far side that beat Lundqvist, resulting in a look of relief after six goalless games to start the season.

“I was trying to just shoot it as hard as I could for the kickout,” said MacArthur, who was hoping to get the rebound onto the stick of teammate Nikolai Kulemin on a 2-on-1. “I was trying to get a rebound, but I’ll take it myself. I was like, ‘Finally.’ I was able to get something going. It was a good feeling.”

MacArthur’s goal was the result of a turnover by the Rangers’ Artem Anisimov at the attacking blue line. Coach John Tortorella said it was an “easy play” that Anisimov didn’t execute because he didn’t see a wide-open Michael Sauer on his right. Tortorella didn’t want to put the blame for the lackluster final 40 minutes on the air going out of the balloon after an emotional start, but there was a letdown.

“I thought we had a pretty good first and had some sustained pressure,” Callahan said. “In the second and third period, we just weren’t doing that. It was definitely disappointing, especially with all the anticipation. We wanted to start with a win in the new building. The crowd was great and definitely gave us a lift in the first period.”

The Leafs’ Mike Brown capped the three-goal third when he artfully used defenseman Steve Eminger as a screen following a Tim Erixon turnover and snapped a shot over Lundqvist’s catching glove to make it 4-1. Michael Del Zotto made the score more tolerable with a late goal to cut the lead to two, but it did nothing to take away from the monster effort from Gustavsson, who will be called upon to start Saturday against Pittsburgh with Reimer out until at least Sunday.

“He played great for us,” said center Tim Connolly, who logged 15:13 of ice time in his first game of the season. “With the way they started, he kept us in the game. Obviously they bumped him a few times, but he stood right in there and did a great job. It’s a big win for us, and he really kept us in there.”

. Another game, another win. Let’s keep it up.

a game I missed, and just forgot to post until now, whoops! Stats.

• Wins: 5
• losses: 3
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 11

. Here’s the recap.

Jagr scores twice in Flyers’ win over Leafs

Tuesday, 10.25.2011 / 12:14 AM

PHILADELPHIA — Jaromir Jagr said he wasn’t pressing to score his first NHL goal in three seasons, but said he was ready to try just about anything to put the puck in the net.

“I changed everything,” he said. “The skate, gloves. I got hit in the head during warm-ups, so that helped.”

After the game he had Monday against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Jagr should get a reinforced helmet.

Jagr scored his first two goals of the season on breakaways, and Scott Hartnell also had a pair of goals, as the Flyers snapped a two-game losing streak with a 4-2 victory Monday against the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs at the Wells Fargo Center.

Claude Giroux and Kimmo Timonen had 2 assists each, and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 24 of 26 shots in goal for the victory.

The goals were Jagr’s first in the NHL since April 6, 2008.

Overshadowing the victory was the loss of team captain Chris Pronger at 8:02 of the first period when he was hit in the right eye by the stick of Maple Leafs forward Mikhail Grabovski. Flyers General Manager Paul Holmgren said Pronger likely will be out 2-3 weeks.

“He’s going to see the eye doctor every day for the next four days,” said Holmgren. “We think after that he’ll be … I don’t want to say out of danger, but if everything goes OK and the swelling goes down, he should start on an exercise program sometime after that and we’re hoping he could rejoin the team in 10 days to two weeks — skating-wise, not necessarily playing.”

Phil Kessel scored his League-high ninth of the season, and David Steckel also scored for the Leafs.

The multi-goal effort for Hartnell was his first since last season’s regular-season finale, April 9 against the Islanders. Just like that night, he had the game-winner against the Leafs on Monday.

With the score tied 1-1 late in the second period, the Flyers went on the man-advantage when Leafs defenseman Mike Komisarek was sent off for interference. As the power play was winding down, Danny Briere came out from behind the goal line to the right of the Toronto net and sent a pass through the slot to Hartnell, who one-timed it, but Jonas Gustavsson stepped across and stopped it with his left pad. However, Hartnell lunged in for the rebound and shoved it under Gustavsson for his first of the season at 15:46.

“It’s nice to get one, even if I had to get on my knees and shovel it in under his pad,” said Hartnell. “It’s nice to help out, and a good feeling to get the win more importantly.”

Hartnell’s second of the game came at 8:34 of the third period. Jagr controlled the puck deep in the Toronto end and gave it to Giroux on the wall on the left side of the zone. Giroux backhanded a pass to Hartnell, who one-timed it from the inside of the left circle over Gustavsson’s glove.

After Steckel made it a one-goal game at 11:34 by batting a high pass from Matt Frattin off Bobrovsky and into the net, Jagr closed the scoring by burying his second breakaway of the game. Taking a long pass from Hartnell, he broke in alone on Gustavsson and beat him at 15:45 of the third. The last time Jagr had a multi-goal NHL game was April 3, 2008.

Jagr’s first goal came late in the first period, on a similar breakaway opportunity. With the Flyers trailing 1-0 but skating on a four-minute power play due to a Joffrey Lupul high-sticking double-minor, Giroux sent breakout pass to Jagr, who split a pair of Leafs defenders at the Toronto blue line and broke in alone on Gustavsson. Jagr beat him high over the stick at 16:22.

“I had three breakaways today,” said Jagr. “The first one I scored, the second one I tried to do something different. I thought maybe if I would shoot it, I would have a chance to score (Gustavsson denied him). The third one, I said, ‘Why change something that is working?’ And he was cheating a little bit. I think he lifted a leg there, but I kind of waited a little longer and I had a spot there.”

Jagr said the best part of scoring Monday meant he wouldn’t have to be asked about when he would score his first goal.

“Yeah, you guys aren’t going to ask me anymore,” Jagr said with a laugh. “I’m glad it was tonight.”

Flyers coach Peter Laviolette also was happy to see his two big power forwards find the back of the net.

“It’s nice to get those guys on the board,” he said. “Jaromir had a lot of chances in the early games and lots of opportunity and their line was good. (Hartnell) has now had two solid games in a row, tonight being his best one. It’s good to get those guys going, sure.”

Toronto took a 1-0 lead on its first shot of the game. Seconds after a Leafs power play came to an end, Flyers rookie forward Brayden Schenn turned the puck over along the wall in the Philadelphia end. John-Michael Liles sent it into the middle, where it hit off the skate of Flyers defenseman Matt Walker and went right to Kessel, who took a stride through the right faceoff circle and fired a shot that beat Bobrovsky high to the short side, over his blocker, at 6:11 of the period.

The game remained tied until late in the second, thanks to outstanding play by Gustavsson, who allowed four goals on 30 shots.

“I thought (Gustavsson) was really good for us,” said Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf. “He gave us a chance to win. He made some really big saves. If you look at the goals, he really didn’t have much of a chance on any of them, and I thought he was really good for us tonight. I just wish we could have helped him a little bit more.”

See you next game.

Hey it’s an overtime win I missed. I’m losing my touch I’m tellin’ you!

• Wins: 5
• losses: 2
• shootout wins: 1
• shootout losses: 0
• points: 11

The recap will tell the story.

Leafs top Habs 5-4 on Grabovski’s OT tally

Saturday, 10.22.2011 / 11:46 PM

MONTREAL — The Toronto Maple Leafs avoided their first losing streak of the season, while the Montreal Canadiens continued their historic one.

Mikhail Grabovski haunted his former team by scoring the winner 1:23 into overtime as the Leafs extended the Canadiens’ misery by beating them 5-4 on Saturday night at the Bell Centre.

The Canadiens loss, albeit in overtime, leaves them without a win at home in four tries and with only one win after seven games for the first time since 1941, when it took them 13 games to get their second win.

The overtime loss also leaves the Habs (1-4-2) dead last in the Eastern Conference standings.

Still, coach Jacques Martin insists it is not yet time to panic — although he admitted the rough start is concerning.

“We recognize it,” Martin said. “But the important thing is to continue working and try to get a win, and then string some wins together.”

At the other end of the spectrum, the Leafs are off to a fabulous 5-1-1 start and quickly snuffed out the bad memory of a 6-2 thumping they took at the hands of the Boston Bruins in their first road game
of the season on Thursday night.

“We played hard all game,” Grabovski said. “It was a good game for both teams. But for us, we try to win every game and keep going. We lost against Boston and we tried to win tonight. We listened to what the coach said to us and we played hard and we won.”

Grabovski pulled a beautiful move on the overtime winner, coming out from behind the Canadiens net and beating Carey Price with a shot to the far post as he was spinning around for his fourth goal of the season.

“It felt good,” he said. “I had my family here in town today from Toronto and I’m happy for them because they came and saw how we won the game and I scored the winning goal.”

David Steckel, Phil Kessel, Dion Phaneuf and Nikolai Kulemin also scored for the Leafs (5-1-1). However the news was not all good for Toronto as goalie James Reimer did not come out for the second period and was replaced by backup Jonas Gustavsson after making nine saves on 10 shots through 20 minutes.

Reimer’s mask was knocked off and he looked to be woozy when Brian Gionta hit him in the head while crossing in front of him at 1:15 of the first. The play was not whistled down as the puck went back towards the Montreal zone, but when the Canadiens touched up for the goaltender interference penalty on Gionta, Reimer looked to be laboring.

He allowed a shorthanded goal to Travis Moen on a partial breakaway 36 seconds after the penalty, but stopped the next eight Canadiens shots. “He just didn’t feel right,” Leafs coach Ron Wilson said, adding he had “no idea” when Reimer would play next.

Gustavsson, who allowed six goals on 43 shots in Toronto’s lone regulation loss of the season in Boston, gave up a goal on the first shot he saw in the second – a laser beam wrist shot by Andrei
Kostitsyn 29 seconds in that gave the Canadiens a very temporary 2-1 lead. Gustavsson, who surrendered six goals in Boston on Thursday, gave up three on 18 shots in two-plus periods of work to get the win.

“I don’t remember for the next seven or eight minutes Montreal even getting a shot, so we tightened up and helped the Monster get settled,” Wilson said. “It was probably two or three minutes that he
even knew he was going in, because we fully expected that James was going to be all right, so he might have been caught off guard a bit.”

Price was denied his 100th career win in his fifth attempt, allowing five goals on 27 shots.

But forward Lars Eller said the team let their goaltender down, much as they have all season, as Price’s save percentage continues to plummet.

“It’s not like us to give that many chances against, I think Carey stood on his head,” said Eller, who had two assists and was a plus-3. “It’s not like us. I can’t recognize us in our own zone right now.
We’re usually a lot better than this. I can’t give you an explanation why, we need to look at the video and look for solutions and then go out there and do it. I don’t think it’s for a lack of motivation or
lack of trying, I think everybody means well and works hard, but certain things are just not done the right way right now.”

Michael Cammalleri also scored and Moen added another for the reeling Canadiens, who host the Florida Panthers on Monday night before entering a tough stretch of three games against the Flyers and a home-and-home with the Boston Bruins.

“We have to be positive, that’s all you can do,” Moen said. “We’ve got a big week coming up and we need some wins. We need a little more desperation in our game, and if we do that we should be fine.”

The Leafs bounced back quickly in the second after falling behind 2-1 on Kostitsyn’s goal. Just 36 seconds later, Kessel picked Gorges’ pocket coming out from behind the Canadiens net and scored his eighth of the season at 1:05 before Phaneuf’s power-play goal at 4:19 put them up 3-2.

Just as they did in the second, the Canadiens scored on their first shot of the third when Cammalleri blasted one from the left circle over Gustavsson’s glove at 1:27 for his second of the season, and Moen
gave Montreal the lead 4-3 when he tipped a Gorges shot from the half boards home at 9:28.

That Moen goal came moments after Price made a miraculous save when he reached back with his paddle to pull a Joffrey Lupul shot off the goal line.

But the Canadiens lead was short-lived once again as Kulemin poked one home off a scramble in front at 13:07 to make it 4-4 and send it to overtime.

See you next game.