Archives for January 2012

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.”