I don’t care where in the tanking/playoff spectrum you stand, beating the Ottawa Senators is always sweet. Especially in a game riddled with physicality and controversy, against a rival considered at season’s dawn a contender vastly more talented than the re-building Maple Leafs.
Straight into the game notes…
*Exactly half of this game was played on special teams, which is not an overly surprising statistic when you take into the account the physicality, passion and downright dirtiness that characterized the game. 14 of the 24 penalties in this tilt were roughing calls and six others were either slashes or cross-checks. The Leafs’ 29th ranked penalty kill came through on seven occasions, largely thanks to one of Vesa Toskala’s best efforts of the ‘08/’09 campaign so far. As much as the Sens offense has been stagnant this year, their power-play hasn’t been overly poor, sitting 17th league-wide. The Leafs, in particular Jaime Sifers, Pavel Kubina and Ian White (3, 3 & 4 BS respectively), did an exemplary job of blocking shooting lanes.
*Tonight was definitely a flash of the VeTo of last season. It’s safe to infer that this game was won between the posts. Martin Gerber was well, Martin Gerber, while Toskala was there when needed and then some. He produced a couple of high-octane saves during scrambles, particularly in short-handed situations. His 30 stops on 31 shots faced was definitely deserving of tonight’s first star.
*One thing that stands out from tonight’s boxscore besides the absence of a game misconduct for a #19 in white is the number of respective give-aways. The Leafs were fairly stingy in this regard, coughing up but five pucks, while the Sens gave the puck up on 12 occasions, most notably the mix-up involving Anton Volchenkov that led to Dominic Moore’s back-handed goal. It seems to me that this has been an ongoing ailment for our struggling Ontario counterparts.
*Speaking of Moore, what a story this guy is. A waiver pick-up earning 900K that’s on pace for 40+ points. That’s a good bang for one’s buck. Identifying Moore’s potential two-way ability if emancipated from Jacques Lemaire’s gridlock defensive system was certainly one instance in which JFJ actually did something good.
*The Jason Blake – Moore – Lee Stempniak line was a bright spot for the Leafs tonight. Blake’s been a bit off-and-on this year, but his ability to buzz the offensive zone and create chances for himself has been more and more evident recently. Certainly, that 40-goal season that’s now but a distant memory is never to be repeated, but if he continues his pace for 20 goals and 30 assists and adds energy to his line night-in-and-night-out, that $4 million/5yr contract is much more palatable.
*Ian White was amazing and ballsy tonight. A team-leading 4 blocked shots, 4 hits and an assist in 23 minutes of ice-time. Additionally, he squared off with that dimwit Chris Neil. Since when does a good, clean hit – on a guy in Fisher who had been dealing out his fair share tonight no less – have to be met by some sort of retaliatory act each and every time? Anyways, the growth of that brawny ’stache appears to have brought with it a corresponding injection of vigor into White’s game.
In general, a spirited overall effort from the Leafs. The entire Buds’ defense corps played exceptionally. P.S: I hope Spezza gets the fine he deserves.
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January 4th, 2009 at 1:24 am
great blog and sweet win indeed, made only sweeter by us beating spezza after he took a page out of hossa’s book
January 4th, 2009 at 1:48 am
Sounds like a good performance but I was far too busy watching the real game tonight
LET’S GO CANADA
January 4th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Always happy when the Leafs beat the Sens.
January 4th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Only Toskala’s fifth game of the season allowing one goal or less, but it looks like the week of rest did him some good. Now for consistency.
I’m not sure what’s worse: Spezza spearing Moore and not being tossed or that Kaberle skated right past Spezza right after the incident and just cried about it to the refs. I know Kaberle is not a tough guy, but all I would expect is for him to get in Spezza’s face – what’s the worst Spezza will do? Kiss him? This is exactly why despite how talented Kaberle is I wouldn’t want him on my team and I can’t imagine him on a Burke team. He just bought his plane ticket out of town last night. It was equally disgusting that no one challenged Spezza the rest of the night for that early spear. As dumb as Neil was to try to fight White for a clean hit, at least he stood up for his teammate. And on that note, I want to see Frogren fight – that guy is a beast and I’m sure he’ll clinch a roster spot if he just drops the gloves once.
I think the best thing about Moore is that he knows his role. He leads on the ice, doesn’t require a lot of minutes or playing on the PP in order to get his points, and I can’t think I’ve ever thought how I expect more from him. Not to mention he’s the guy that has given Blake some value as of late. He deserves a raise just for that.
January 4th, 2009 at 11:55 am
you forgot the best part of the game, Frogren trying to pop Ruutu’s head off
January 4th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
pretty saddening for the sens.. three super stars.. and sucking to a team without a true superstar
January 4th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Remember Ian Mendes from TSN, he was dissing us Leafs throughout the whole year last year. He made his own blog show where he asks this so called “fortune teller”: “Will the Leafs make it the playoffs this year?” What an idiot. Now Ian Mendes can shat ap and watch reality unfold.
January 4th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
“pretty saddening for the sens.. three super stars.. and sucking to a team without a true superstar”
Well I guess that’s sort of correct but that number 84 on the Leafs, even though he still really just a rookie, is more than making his case to be just that.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Fuck the Senators.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
BURKE…. IF YOU SEE THIS… TEAR THIS THING DOWN NOW BEFORE WE WIN MORE GAMES!!!
…I’m fairly confident Burke reads the hotstove.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
I was flipping back and forth from the Leafs/Canada game.. are you speaking about Frogren maneuvering the Sen into the mercenary position? Then yes, I should’ve mentioned it.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
He would HG if he knew what was good for him.
January 4th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I agree with most posts here. Kaberle showed no class is crying to the ref while Moore gets speared. But although i would hope for more i would expect nothing less. I enjoy watching Frogren play, he’s full of grit. last night wasnt the first time he’s grabbed somebody out of a scrum and pinned them down, and it was made all the better that it was Ruutu. At the end of the day i’d like to see us lose more than we win so long as our young players continue to grow and improve but I will always..ALWAYS welcome a win over the Sens!
Great posts guys, keep up the great work
January 4th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
Makes you wonder if Toskala likes the backup workload, coming of a five day lay off probably the best I’ve seen him play all year. Thought Jason Blake worked hard in the game, just glad NASN has started playing HNiC again!
January 4th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
I agree…beating Ottawa is always sweet, no matter what. I too like the Blake – Moore – Stempniak line. So let me ask this…where does Williams fit when he comes back from injury?? Can he play on the fourth line with Mitchell and Mayers and still be as effective? Will that give us 4 lines to roll in a game and not worry too much about the defensive shortfalls of some players (like Hollweg…although Williams needs to improve on his d-zone positioning)?
I think Toskala benefited from the mental break of having some time off. I think he is a number 1 goalie, but we need to shoot to have him start 55-60 games a year, giving him some more frequent spaces to rest and refocus. We’ll see if this is the beginning of a string of good starts in a row…I think it just might be.
We need to get Grabo-Hagman-Kulemin going again, maybe some PP time will give them a good start. I wonder if their early season success had to do with some teams not preparing defensively to handle that line’s offence. Maybe teams are beginning to focus on that line defensively, and perhaps they just need to learn how to push through a little bit of adversity.
In any case, it was nice to see us win a game and not take shifts off, but compete with a good work ethic.