Game In 10: Game 21, Leafs at Canes

by Mislav Jantoljak on November 20, 2011 in Uncategorized - 373 Comments

Leafs vs. Leafs #2? A lot of former Leafs were in that Carolina lineup. Former Leaf Tomas Kaberle, former Leaf and shot blocker extraordinaire Tim Brent, former Leaf Jay Harrison, former Leaf Alex Ponikarovsky, former Leaf Jiri Tlusty, former Leafs coach Paul Maurice. Ontario lad and future Leaf – Eric Staal.

1 – The Leafs are 11-8-2 and yeah, this was a sloppy, tired game. I’ll call this one “The Young And The Restless”. Pretty much sums it up.

2 – During the first period the game went back and forth, with the Canes having the only real pressure in the period after their powerplay opportunity. They just kept missing the net during the period until Jay Harrison scored to make it 1-0 Canes. So many ex Leaf players it had to be somebody…

3 – A very good point made by Alec – Scrivens seems vulnerable to wrist shots from the point. He’s let in three of those in his last three games. However, much like his story so far, after the goal he really buckled down and made some very impressive saves. One in the middle of the third period really sticks out.

4 – Another period of intense pressure in the second period, Scrivens lost his stick, Connolly lost his stick, chaos everywhere, but our D managed to hold on and get the puck out. We were really dominated down low at times in this game.

5 – This was a weird game – Kaberle decides to play defense and shoot. In his mind Poni is probably still a Leaf, helping us on one occasion, but soon enough Schenn scores to make it 2-0 Canes. A bad luck play, this WAS a weird game.

6 – We lost many, many, many faceoffs tonight. If you lose faceoffs you don’t get the puck, if you don’t have the puck you’re chasing the game. Always hazardous to a team’s health but especially hazardous on back to back nights, because you have no legs to chase the play with.

7 – Joe Bowen’s “Good use of Crabb legs” made me laugh and Ward’s save on Connolly made me cry. Skinner and McBain made me think I was watching an episode of The Simpsons.

8 – Phil Kessel scores on a big 4 on 3 PP for our boys and takes us within one. This created panic amongst the Hurricanes and gave us some extra jump. Sadly, Jeff Skinner scored to make it 3-1 after some fantastic work by Connolly at the other end. Franson and Liles both pinched with no defensive awareness and were both nowhere to be seen after a big save by Scrivens on a Staal breakaway. But wait, Phil Kessel superman? Most certainly, he makes it interesting with 1 minute to go. You know how he can’t take over a game? Well – WRONG.

9 – Here come the positives, our PK was 4/5 tonight and the PP was 1/2, most importantly we got a PP goal when we desperately needed it. Connolly is playing well, he’s controlling the play at times. However, we were called for many stupid penalties, something that happens when you’re tired.

10 – The team struggled tonight, you could see the legs just weren’t there in the first two periods. The good news is desperation and Phil Kessel kicked in late. I liked that. Seeing how this was a back to back effort and we were missing key guys from the lineup, this isn’t that big of a deal. Again, not making excuses, just stating facts. Moving on.

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