Leafs get back on track against Florida, chance to catch Flyers tonight
With four games this week, a win last night against the Florida Panthers was exactly what the Leafs needed to kick off a crucial stretch of games that will see them play 7 of their next 10 games on the road, 5 of them against teams they will need to catch if they wish to make the playoffs (Philly twice, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and Florida again). Oh, and the rest of that ten game stretch? How about the Buffalo Ryan Millers, Pittsburgh, Washington and the 8th place Nashville Predators from out west? Oh, and by the way, they’ll be making this trip without their 5th leading scorer and probably their top faceoff man (Grabovski – broken wrist) and one of their better defensive centers (Primeau – knee injury). Filling in for the wounded Leafs will be John Mitchell, who returned last night after missing 20 games with a knee injury of his own, and Rickard Wallin (is there a more useless player in the league right now?? Oh wait, Vesa Toskala)
The Leafs have a fantastic opportunity to make up some much-needed ground on that 8th spot, currently held by the damn Habs, who have 45 points to Toronto’s 39. If they are to make up that ground, however, they’ll need to get their recently sputtering offense back on track. The Leafs have been held to 2 goals or less in 7 of their last 10 games. Not surprisingly, they won only one of those games in which they failed to score at least 3 goals, a 2-0 win over Boston, and won two of the 3 games they managed to score 3 goals, with the 6-3 loss to Phoenix being the lone exception.
It’s not difficult to find struggling scorers on the Leafs roster right now. Phil Kessel has managed to score only 1 goal in his past 9 games, Nik Hagman has only 1 goal and 2 assists in his last 10, Stajan hasn’t scored in so long he doesn’t remember what the red light looks like, and Poni’s game winner last night was his first goal since the middle of December. Of the Leafs’ top seven scoring forwards, Stemps and Blake have been the closest thing to consistent producers lately. But neither of those players is the type of guy to put a team on his back and singlehandedly win a game for them. Kessel is the closest thing the Leafs have to a stand alone superstar, and it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to make a connection between his recent scoring drought and the Leafs’ lack of success. When Phil was still putting the puck in the net, the Leafs went 11-8-2 through November and the early part of December and were making significant progress towards becoming a serious threat to make the postseason. Since Kessel started coming up dry, the Buds are a much more pedestrian 3-4-2, and are now 3 games out. Kessel himself has stated that he’s not worried about it, that it’s just a part of the life of an NHL scorer and that eventually the puck will start going in again. Ron Wilson seemed to agree with him when he placed some of the blame on Matt Stajan’s performance, indicating that his scoring drought “has everything to do with him not getting the puck as much as he needs to and the right kind of timing” He also said there is “a little bit more pressure on Stajan to make more plays.”
While Gustavsson has been very solid lately, compiling a 1.76 GAA and a .932 save percentage over his past 8 games, he still has some work to do before the Leafs can start winning games scoring 1 or 2 goals. I don’t even wanna discuss Toskala or my New Year’s Day hangover might make a reappearance. Throw in the fact that our defense seems to have a nightly quota of dumbass moves to meet, and it’s clear that something needs to be done to spark the offense, or the Leafs will continue to waste valuable and increasingly infrequent chances to improve their record. John Mitchell (2-7-9 in 23 games) and Rickard Wallin (wait for it….0-3-3 in 31 games) are not that something.
All that aside, the Leafs turned in a pretty solid performance last night. They started slow, giving up two goals in the first, both scored by Bryan McCabe, which gave the ACC faithful plenty to yell about. (I put the highlights in at the bottom – check out McCabe’s second goal, the pass from Denny Seidenberg was a thing of beauty) But the Leafs managed to pull within one with a powerplay goal (finally) from Stempniak, and notched two in the 2nd to put the game away. Gustavsson stood tall in the 3rd making a couple impressive saves in the closing minutes to keep the game from going to extra time, which, I think it’s safe to say, has been anything but kind to the boys in Blue. From what I watched (when I wasn’t glued to the Canada-USA gold medal game), I thought the Leafs did a good job of playing physical and keeping a good amount of play in the Florida end.
The win drew the Leafs back within a game of both Florida and Philadelphia, and tonight’s game against the Flyers gives them a great chance to draw even with both clubs. (Florida has tonight off) Philly is coming off of a tough end to what was a pretty good road trip with wins against Tampa Bay, Carolina and both New York teams. After an overtime loss in the Winter Classic at Fenway, the Flyers lost 7-4 to Ottawa on Sunday before heading back to Philly. The Wachovia Center has not been kind to the Flyers as of late, as Philly has dropped 7 of their last 8 at home.