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!
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