Maple Leafs Back To Their Winning Ways

After a tough week and a half of losses for the Toronto Maple Leafs, they were finally able to get back to their winning ways with a win over the Florida Panthers on Tuesday (Oct.26th).

After tearing into the 2010-2011 season with four straight wins, Leafs Nation was given a dash of realism beginning with their fifth game of the year was against the New York Islanders on Monday October 18th, where they finally found themselves on the loosing end of things this season with a 2-1 loss in overtime, when islanders star John Tavares ripped a slap shot over the shoulder of Leafs goaltender J.S Giguere three and half minutes into the extra period.

The next game for Toronto came against the New York Rangers, who they beat the week earlier. The game was dry and boring from an offensive point of view, both teams struggled to get anything going in each other’s ends. The Rangers got two late first period goals that were able to hold up over the entire game, winning 2-1. The only excitement out of this game was the fight between the Leafs tough guy Colton Orr and the Rangers 6'9" monster Derek Boogaard where Orr was only able to get one quick punch in on Boogaard but still managed to knock a few of his teeth out.

Toronto then faced the Philadelphia flyers on Saturday night (Oct.23rd) and looked like the same Maple Leafs team of past years, their play was sloppy and they were sitting back the entire game. Giveaways and missed opportunities led the Leafs to their third straight loss, setting Leafs Nation into a frenzy and prompting many to jump of the Leafs bandwagon.

Finally the Leafs came up with a big win Tuesday night (Oct.26t) against the Florida Panthers at the ACC in Toronto. The Maple Leafs finally had some jump in their step and was looking like the team that began the season with four straight wins. The game winning goal had some serious controversy, and rightly so. A shot from Tim Brent was heading towards the net when the Leafs forward Colton Orr hit skated right into the Florida Panthers goalie Scott Clemmensen and pushed him out of the way, and the same time had the puck deflect of his foot right into the net. The Panthers coaching staff were protesting the goal due to the goaltender interference, but to no avail. The Maple Leafs won the game with a final score of 3-1, and once again finds themselves atop the Eastern Conference with 11 points. The lose did not come without a price, the Leafs lost right winger Colby Armstrong when he took a shot of his hand early in the first, he will be out for four to six weeks and may require surgery, the Leafs have called up Luca Caputi from the Toronto Marlies of the AHL to fill his place in the lineup.

The Maple Leafs face the Boston Bruins for the first time this season on Thursday night and look to get back on a winning streak to gather these very important early season points in the standings.

If you missed any of the action make sure to check out the Game Highlights Page

Until next time, Cheers and GO LEAFS GO!

The Start We Were All Looking For...

The 2010-2011 season for the Toronto Maple Leafs has started with a bang. No one could have expected the team to come out with three straight wins against three tough Eastern Conference rivals.

The Toronto Maple Leafs began their season last Thursday night with a 3-2 victory over their divisional rival Montreal Canadiens, in large part due to the heroics of starting goaltender J.S Guigeure.

The Maple Leafs opened up the scoring with a goal from an unlikely player Tim Brent, who was a surprise to make the team out of camp. The Goal was only his first since the 2006-2007 season when he was a member of the Anaheim Ducks. The game continued on as both teams looked shaky in their own ends of the ice, with sloppy defensive plays occurring left and right. The Leafs then made it 2-0 on Phil Kessel’s first goal of the year. Montreal's newly acquired Dustin Boyd then potted one for the Canadiens to cut the lead in half after the first period.

The second went by without much entertainment, both teams looked to be fighting themselves and the sloppy in zone play continued.

The Leafs then came out flying in the third and Clark MacArthur came up with his first goal as a Maple Leaf just over a minute and a half into the period to make the score 3-1 for the Maple Leafs. The Canadiens struck back quickly with a goal from Jeff Halpern a minute later to cut the lead to one. The final minutes were very tense for the Leafs with the Canadiens swarming their zone throwing everything the had at the Maple Leafs goal, but the Leaf goaltender J.S Guigeure was up to the task, including making a buzzer beater save to solidify the win for the Toronto Maple Leafs. It took one month for the Maple Leafs to get a win last season, and only one game this year.

Toronto's next game was the battle of Ontario versus the Ottawa Senators on Saturday Oct.10th. No one could have seen this one coming, the Maple Leafs ran over the Senators 5-1 spreading out goals over all three periods. Toronto showed complete dominance over Ottawa throughout the entire game. Goal scorers for Toronto were Nikolai Kulemin, Phil Kessel, Clarke MacArthur, Kris Versteeg, and finally Tim Brent. The Lone goal scorer for Ottawa was Jason Spezza who was making his season debut after missing their first game due to a nagging injury. The fireworks continued late into the third period with three fights, highlighted by round one of the Leafs Colton Orr and the Senators Matt Carkner who fought a total of four times last season, Orr took the decisive victory this time around. With the win the Maple Leafs begin a season with two straight wins for the first time since the 1999-2000 campaign.

The Toronto Maple Leafs began their first road trip of the year on Wednesday (Oct.13th) night versus Sid the Kid and the highflying Pittsburg Penguins at their brand new arena, the Consol Energy Centre. The Leafs were going for a bit of a different look in goal, starting sophomore goaltender Jonas Gustavsson. Most sports experts claimed this was the Leafs first real test, as Pittsburgh is a high quality squad. The game was extremely high paced with action in both ends, but even after only managing five shots on net the Penguins led 2-1 after the first period. The second period was all scoring, including two more from the Leafs Clark MacArthur who has come out of no where this season to score four goals in the first three games to share a tie as the league’s top goal scorer with Alex Ovechkin and Derek Roy. The second period ended with a score of 4-3 for the Maple Leafs. In the third period the ice tilted to the Leafs end, the Penguins bombarded the Leafs goal with shot after shot, but could not capitalize. The Leafs managed to hold off the attack to win the game 4-3, the win gives the Maple Leafs a record of 3-0-0 and puts the Maple Leafs on top of the Eastern Conference.

Remember if you missed any of the action check the Game Highlights page for all the highlights!

Until next time, Cheers and GO Leafs GO!

And So It Begins...

Finally the day is upon us, NHL hockey returns tonight, and most importantly the return of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs open up their season at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto against divisional rival Montreal Canadians at 7 pm. The Leafs have not won a home opener in ten long years, albeit was against the Canadians, so without a questions it would be a huge win for all Leafs Nation if they can pull it off.

The roster the Leafs will set out tonight will only contain seven players from the season opener last season, witch is very good news for all fans because of the horrific stretch the team went on last year to begin their season, going a dismal 0-7-0-1 in their first eight games, virtually eliminating them selves from having any sort of successful season right off the bat. The Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Ron Wilson has stated that the most important thing for his team this year is to come out hot out of the gate, and have a solid start.

The opening night roster will look like this:

Forwards:

Versteeg – Bozak – Kessel
Kulemin – Grabovski – MacArthur
Sjostrom – Brent – Armstrong
Orr – Zigomanis – Brown

Defence:

Phaneuf – Beauchemin
Kaberle – Schenn
Komisarek – Gunnarsson

Goal:

Giguere (starter)
Gustavsson


This line up looks very promising with five players making their Toronto Maple Leaf regular season debut. The lack of one player in the line up is a bit of a surprise to Leafs fans, young rookie Nazem Kadri will be beginning his professional career with the Toronto Marlies of the AHL, the choice to send him down by the Leafs brass was made this past Monday. Although this choice has taken a lot of criticism by the Toronto sports media you do not need to look far to see how this has worked before for Brian Burke, where in Anaheim he sent down players like Ryan Getzlaf who was just named the teams captain and was part of Canada's gold medal win in Vancouver last February, Corey Perry who was also part of the Canadian squad and finally Bobby Ryan who played for his country at the Olympics as well. All three spent significant time in the AHL and are now all elite superstars in the NHL. So there is hope for Nazem, and i wouldn't doubt it if we see him with the big club sometime during the season.

So lets hope the Leafs can pull out the win tonight over the Montreal Canadians and get the 2010-2011 campaign off on the right foot!

Ps: Be sure to Vote on my new Poll about who will be a stand out in the first two weeks of the season!

Cheers and GO LEAFS GO!